The Favor
by CowboyK
Summary: Team JNPR and team RWBY are going into the Emerald forest to clear out a large congregation of Grimm with Jaune as the leader, what happens on the mission will reveal something that will change everyone's lives. On top of that Jaune also needs to deal with his inner demons, but his past is keeping him down, how will he move on and get stronger?
1. Touchdown

Jaune sat still hunched over a trash can on the Bullhead, still shaking at what Ozpin just informed his team and team RWBY on. As he went over what Ozpin said, he finally lost his lunch.

(Flashback to the day before)

"Will teams RWBY and JNPR please report to the headmaster's office." Jaune heard over the loudspeaker as he walked to his leadership class. _Did Ozpin finally find out about Nora taking in a baby Ursa and raising it to do tricks and be her own?_ Stuck with his own thoughts Jaune made his way to the headmaster's office.

As he walked into the office he saw that everyone was already there and just as confused as Jaune was. Jaune looked around and was about to ask why they were brought here when Ozpin interrupted him by saying.

"Now I know you may be confused as to why I brought you guys here." He raised his hand to stop both teams from answering and said " You two teams will be going into the Emerald Forest for a few days in order to control an increasing amount of Grimm, and to see if there is any reason for the Grimm to be congregating in the forest."

"How much Grimm are we talking about here Professor?" Ruby asked.

"I'm glad you asked miss Rose" Ozpin replied while gesturing for the teams to look onto the monitor above him. " Roughly 4,000 Grimm have gathered within a 2 mile radius, that much Grimm hasn't been reported since the great war, which is why I need 2 second year teams to complete this mission." Ozpin looked finished but added "Lead by Mr. Arc"

Jaune's world got cold as he tried to joke by saying "No really Ozpin who is it." But he just received a blank stare from Ozpin and looked at his feet.

"You all leave tomorrow at noon make sure you pack accordingly for a weeks stay if things don't go according to plan."

Jaune ran out of the room, his thoughts going at a mile a minute _What is Ozpin thinking I can't lead a team, I can't even protect myself how will I be able protect 7 others, Oh God what will I do_. In his thinking Jaune plowed right into someone.

"Sorry" Jaune yelled but Doctor Oobleck grabbed Jaune's arm and whisked him into his office.

"What seems to be the problem young lad and don't try and say you're fine, you're clearly distressed about something." Oobleck said.

"Well sir, you see Ozpin made me leader of our next mission, and I've got a lot on my mind" Jaune responded cautiously not having interacted too much with the doctor.

"I'm all ears lad"

With speed that could compare to Ooblecks Jaune started with "What if i'm not good enough, what if i make a mistake, what if I'm not strong enough and get my friends hurt, or if I can't protect them."

" Alright Jaune I see your concerns and I hope can answer some to help you, first you will make a mistake but if you worry too much about it you'll make even more, and I know Ozpin wouldn't have made you leader if he didn't think you were fit to lead and couldn't protect your friends. Have some faith in yourself lad or you won't be able to lead your friends." Oobleck finished.

"Thanks sir, I really needed that" Jaune replied

"Thats what us professors are here for, to guide aspiring hunters and huntresses" Oobleck said as he took off to where he was originally going.

And with that Jaune took a walk to clear his head. He didn't get back to the dorm until everyone was asleep, and slowly opened the door to not wake his team up. He looked over at Nora snuggled up to Ren and wondered how he got so lucky to have such amazing friends, he smiled at the two and went to bed not ready for what lay ahead of him.

After emptying his lunch into the trash can he stood up and told everyone that they were nearing the drop zone. He got nods and grunts of acknowledgement from everyone except Weiss who retorted with "Don't mess this up you dunce"

"Thanks for the confidence boost ice queen" Jaune appeared to slide her statement under the rug, but it brought out all of his anxieties that Oobleck helped quell. His breathing stopped for a second almost letting them control him when he saw that they were about to jump out of the Bullhead.

"Jaune are you alright?" Pyrrha said surprising Jaune with worry evident on her face.

"I'm fine Pyr just worrying about the mission don't worry about me" Jaune said with a goofy smile and turned back to jump out.

He leaped out and looked down, there was a lot of space between the ground to him. He got ready to deploy his landing strategy of riding his shield and using his sword to slow his fall by running it down a tree. When he realized his shield was jammed, he tried with all of his might to free it but all of his attempts to open it failed. He looked at Pyrrha hoping she could save him, but saw that she couldn't pin him to a tree from the angle he was at from he. _Of course I die from a shield malfunction._ Jaune thought to himself. Before two gauntlet covered hands hooked under his shoulders and yelled.

"You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get away from us!"

Yang shot her gauntlets slowing them down and set Jaune down who looked to Yang and told her

" I owe you one."

"Yea you do Jaune, I would've done it favor or not, but you do still owe me one." Jaune sighed at this, but his shield popped open as he did and sent him to the ground again.

"I just can't catch a break' Jaune said as he made his way to his friends.

They all agreed they would walk to a spot safely away from the 2 mile radius the Grimm were at and camp out there, then tomorrow they would investigate. They all agreed and began with a jog towards their set destination.

An hour later they came across a pack of Beowolves in a clearing who noticed them, so they decided that they would quickly finish them before more came.

" Don't waste your ammo here guys!" Jaune yelled

"Finally, we get to fight some Grimm, I was getting bored" Ruby yelled, launching into battle scythe blazing, tearing apart Grimm. Everyone joined in and when the pack was almost finished a ear splitting howl was heard, everyone looked up, they saw an alpha Beowolf and Ursa charge in with 5 Ursa Majors behind it.

"Holy shit!" Jaune found himself saying without thinking.

"Language" Ren warned, but let out a smile even with the circumstances surrounding them.

"Alright team RWBY begin on the alpha Beowolf, we'll start on the Ursa's" Jaune ordered and everyone began the fight. Nora shot in launching the alpha Ursa back and using the hit to bounce back to her team, Ren and Nora started on 2 to the right, while Jaune and Pyrrha began on the 2 on the left.

"I've got this one Pyr" Jaune said as he swung at one that he had named his. "When you finish with yours help out the others" he ordered. Pyrrha responded with a nod and set off towards her Ursa. Jaune refocused on his and jumped back from a deadly swipe, scolding himself for not paying attention. He held his shield above him and blocked a swipe, cutting up it's left leg he backed up now being able to attack it easier with it wounded. He charged it's weak leg and sliced it's back narrowly dodging a stray paw. Now attacking with rage the Ursa now led more attacks with openings and Jaune took an opening and used his shield to daze the Ursa then sliced it's head off.

Jaune looked at team RWBY who seemed to be having a little trouble finishing the Beowolf. Both sets of partners working seamlessly to slowly whittle the beast down with flawless combos and attacks. Just as they were about to end it the alpha Ursa came in and before Jaune could say anything and launched Ruby who was taking potshots with her sniper rifle at the Beowolf, across the battlefield. Weiss and Blake went to see if she was okay and see the damage done to her, leaving Yang to finish off both Grimm. Jaune yelled for Yang to retreat but his warnings fell onto deaf ears as Yang rushed in rage consuming her.

" You monster, you hurt my baby sister!" Yang screamed as her eyes grew red and her body seemed to emit flames.

"Yang!" Jaune yelled. He then ran in trying to get Yang out of there before she got hurt, only to get thrown back and forced to watch her take on the Ursa as she delivered blow after blow to the Ursa, that made it stagger. But as Jaune attempted to run in again he saw the alpha Beowolf swipe at Yang. But before it could connect Jaune dove in front of the attack absorbing it with his side which launched him into Yang and then them both out of the clearing into a tree which Jaune hit cushioning Yang with his body. He lay on the ground with blood coming out of his side as he looked at Yang who stood defensively over him ready to attack the coming alphas. Just as they were about to reach Yang; Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, Weiss, Blake jumped in and started attacking the monsters, so Yang picked up the now unconscious Jaune and brought him next to a pouting Ruby who said.

"No fair, they wouldn't let me get back in just because I'm 'bleeding' " She said with air quotes. Yang laughed and rubbed Ruby's head, and said

"Never change Ruby" Yang then went to tend to Jaune and looked at him. He was in really bad shape, blood seeping out of his side, although his aura was healing it he still looked pale, and if Yang was honest he looked peaceful despite the circumstances, and appearance wise he didn't look that bad the muscle he had been putting on over the last two years, didn't hurt. Yang shook her head dismissing the thoughts and decided that administering first aid couldn't hurt him. She started by unhooking his armor and peeling it off. then his hoodie which if Yang was honest looked pretty warm. Jaune instinctively shivered at having his source of warmth taken away from himself. She started to take off his shirt, but heard his breath strain, and realized he might have a broken rib, so she took his sword and ripped his shirt open across the middle and carefully removed it. A light blush appeared on her face as she saw that he looked way more muscular without his shirt. But she again returned her thoughts to the injured boy in front of her

Now that she could see the damage it looked worse with his shirt off. He clearly had at least one broken rib and his shoulder was in bad shape, but she couldn't do anything about them with her knowledge of first aid. Then she looked at his side, he had four deep claw marks, was bleeding pretty bad and she knew that she needed to clean it out because it had been covered in dirt.

"Ruby I'm gonna need you to pour water into Jaune's wound and clean it out, don't stop no matter how much he screams, I'll hold him down" Yang ordered to which Ruby nodded and grabbed some water out of one of the backpacks they had and got ready. "On three. .Three!"

Yang held Jaune down by shoulders knowing that there was even more pain in holding there, but needing to hold there in order to get leverage to keep him from squirming. His skin was frigid to the touch, but Yang needed to focus on the task at hand, holding him down. As Ruby grabbed the wound and poured some water into it. Jaune's eye shot open and he let out a bloodcurdling scream that could rival the Grimm's, Yang clamped her hand over his mouth so he didn't distract his teammates from attacking the alpha's or attract more Grimm. Tears streamed from his eyes as he used all his energy in a last ditch effort to stop whatever was hurting him, as Ruby drenched a washcloth in water and began to clean the harder to reach spots digging into his cuts, at this point Jaune stopped flailing his arms went limp and passed out, which wasn't nearly as fast as Yang hoped he would have passed out.

Ruby finished up and they used his shirt and some bandages to slow the bleeding. Once they stopped Ruby looked up at Yang and said.

"I never want to do that again Yang, it feels so wrong to hurt him."

"I know Ruby, but we needed to do it, believe me it was harder on me because my carelessness caused this, I am the reason for all his pain." She looked at his ghastly white body and continued "I wish I could have avoided it but it happened and we need to make sure no one else ends up like him."

Ruby nodded and waved at their teammates as Yang put on Jaune's sweatshirt she didn't know why but it felt right to her, since he couldn't wear it with his shoulder. Then she scooped Jaune up, and used her semblance to keep him warm when she noticed they had disposed of the Grimm and were walking towards them Yang went over to debrief them on what happened

Naturally, Pyrrha was the first to rush to Yang and asked

"How is he, what happened?"

Yang began with " First off he'll live his aura's starting the healing process as we speak." She paused then added "As to how he got in such a poor state, that one's on me, when Ruby got hit I let my rage consume me and got reckless. Jaune saved me from a hit that would've killed anyone but him because of his aura reserves. And then when he got launched he brought me with him and absorbed the impact for both of us, which is why his shoulders are messed up."

To everyone's surprise Pyrrha let out a quick laugh and said "Of course that boy would do something as reckless as that."

"Alright lets grab our gear and set up camp far enough away so Grimm investigating the battle won't find us. But lets hurry so we get there before sundown so we can set up camp." Ruby said as she broke off into a jog

And with that they set off, Yang with Jaune in her arms with Nora and Pyrrha holding their bags with no problems because of their strength. With the adrenaline from the battle they headed off at a quick pace and ran towards their destination.

With nobody making small talk Yang's mind began to wander to the topless blonde knight in her arms. What Yang couldn't understand was why Jaune would sacrifice himself as quickly as he did for someone he wasn't even that close to. With these thoughts in her mind she quickened her pace for a moment to catch up to Pyrrha and ask

" Why would Jaune sacrifice himself for me?" Pyrrha thought for a moment before she responded with

"I don't know for sure, you should ask him when he wakes up."

Yang accepted that answer and began thinking about Jaune again, _I guess I was wrong about him, before this mission I thought he was just this weak awkward boy, but he seems to have a whole different side to him I hadn't bothered to get to know that side of him._ She decided that when he woke up she would try to get to know Jaune better.

She was interrupted from her thoughts when Blake bumped into her and commented

"He's bleeding on you pretty fast, are you sure his aura's healing the wound?" Yang turned him in her arms and saw that the bleeding had begun to speed up and yelled out

"We need to stop right here, Jaune's aura stopped healing his wound!"

"This area is covered with Grimm we'll need to set up a perimeter with every person not assisting Jaune watching." Ruby ordered to the 6 conscious people in behind her as she used her semblance to erect a medical tent for Jaune.

Ren turned around and took charge with aiding Jaune, since he was the best at first aid he ordered.

"Yang come with me, you and I are going to see why his wounds stopped healing." Ren stated.

 **First chapter done criticism is welcome I might redo the action scene that was just meant to give a taste of what the fights will be like in later chapters, I'll post whenever I can thanks for reading.**

 **P.S if you got the avengers reference you win**


	2. Don't Go

**Here's the second chapter, I'll have an actual author's note at the end enjoy!**

 **Chapter 2: Don't Go**

Yang set Jaune down on a makeshift operating table and looked up to Ren who started taking control of the situation applying his first aid knowledge and properly cleaned his gash fixed all of the smaller cuts while having Yang keep pressure on the gash then once he had finished he told Yang to grab his scroll so they could see his aura levels.

Yang did as she was told and grabbed his scroll out of his blood-soaked jeans and showed Ren with a look of horror on her face. His aura was at 1%, she had never seen anyone's aura drop below 10% let alone reach 1%, and the look of surprise on Ren's face showed that he hadn't seen someone's aura that low either.

While they were watching his aura levels, it jumped up to 5% to both of their surprises. They both shared a confused glance because aura usually takes longer to regenerate just 1% but Jaune had just regained 4%. Ren looked to be lost in thought for a moment before focusing back onto Jaune and becoming authoritative again telling Yang.

"His aura stopped healing him and just started maintaining his current condition in order to stop his aura from zeroing out which is why he started bleeding because if he hit zero percent his wound would have worsened and he would have died." He took a breath before continuing "But even at this rate his aura won't replenish enough for him to get to the point where he can heal the laceration before he bleeds out. I'm gonna need to give him some of my aura in order to save him"

As he went to start, a beowolf growl stopped him along with the readying of weapons, knowing a fight was about to start Yang pushed away Ren's hands and told him.

"Ren you'll need all the aura you can get because you use it heavily when you fight, I can afford to lose some aura if I need to come out and fight. Now go help them fight I can handle it from here" _Plus I'm the reason he needs aura_ she added silently.

Ren left the medical tent to help the others fight the Grimm surrounding the perimeter that they had set up. Yang looked at a pale Jaune and placed her hands lightly on his chest as if he was made of glass. She took a deep breath and began to imagine her channeling her aura into Jaune, she felt herself being drained as Jaune's aura began to rise. When she saw that her aura levels had hit 60% she took her hands off and looked at Jaune's aura again, but his aura had only reached 25% because he had so much aura capacity compared to her.

She looked at his injury and saw it stop bleeding and begin to seal, but the important thing to her was the bleeding stopped. Knowing that he had stabilized for the moment she peeked her head outside the tent and saw that the sun had begun to set, and the Grimm began to pour out from the trees. The real fight hadn't broke out yet, just a few small skirmishes before the larger Grimm came. The 5 of them out there were all equally spaced out and fighting some small beowolves that had came. Weiss charged forward perforating 2 beowolves in one lunge then retreating back to the circle.

Yang took a spot next to Blake and cocked her gauntlets back ready for and unfortunate Grimm that came her way. As she got into a battle stance Blake raised an eyebrow questioning her as to what happened in the tent.

"Jaune needed more aura so he didn't bleed out." Yang replied casually as if it was no big deal. Blake looked at her one last time then shrugged and brought her attention to the battlefield.

Meanwhile Ruby yelled out commands and callouts to everyone stepping up for the incapacitated Jaune as leader. As a group of 6 approached Ruby she started spinning her scythe and building momentum slicing 2 in half and she got the third one's head under her scythe and pulled the trigger out of habit cutting it's head off, letting a shot echo across the forest before killing the final 2. Everyone paused and looked at Ruby whose eyes grew wide and apologized profusely before calling for everybody to get closer and make the perimeter more secure for the storm of Grimm they knew were on the way.

"We're going loud now guys," was all Ruby said before returning to battle.

They let a silence envelop the area and looked around waiting for the first of the bigger Grimm to rear their heads. On cue a Deathstalker appeared opposite Ren and Nora, and they began work on the beast. Ren rushed forward peppering the creature with bullets while Nora pelted it with grenades as she got closer until it rushed them and she had to transform Magnhild into it's hammer form and swing in a giant arc only to come in too high and deflect off of it's heavy armor. While she recovered the Deathstalker saw an opportunity to strike as it launched it's stinger towards Nora, but before it could strike her Ren caught it with his hands using aura to hold it taking a big chunk out of his aura. While Nora continued the missed the swing and demolished the top half of it's tail. Then Ren slides under it while it's confused and uses Stormflower to get at it's fleshy underside and kill it. But not before Nora gets bashed backwards by the pincers in a last ditch effort to save itself, not taking too much damage but it did take some aura out of her.

Elsewhere Yang and Blake were side by side waging their own small war on the Grimm, albeit with Yang glancing towards the medical tent every time she had a small break. Blake had to step up because of her distracted partner, even though she didn't understand why she cared so much for the Arc boy, she would confront Yang later when the time was right.

"Yang pay attention this is life or death!" Blake scolded

Yang just shook her head clearing out thoughts of Jaune with thoughts of the battle field. Noting that the others were having a rough time and that Blake seemed to be overexerting herself so she motioned for Blake to take a break so that they could switch off when Yang got tired. Which would probably be soon because she donated the aura to Jaune, nonetheless she focused on the beowolves in front of her which were closing in on her. Yang rushed forward using her gauntlets to punch the first beowolf right in the jaw killing it instantly, she then followed up with a devastating shot to the next ones face and the blast killed it instantly. She tripped the next one so she would have time to uppercut it while Blake stabbed the tripped one and tagged Yang out.

Yang sat down exhausted, her aura hadn't gone down but she still felt the toll of giving Jaune some of her aura. Speaking of Jaune she went to go back in the tent and check on him, when she noticed that her semblance was going off and that she had gotten really hot. So she decided against going in there for Jaunes safety and just sat down, since she tends to give burns to people who get too close to her when her semblance is going off. Yang still couldn't get over how Jaune would so willingly through his life away for other, while thinking about said knight Yang heard someone yell her name, but she couldn't discern who was yelling she saw Ruby get hit by a Boarbatusk. In a flash she recognized Blake's voice, she looked up only to get tackled and clawed by a stray beowolf easily taking an unready Yang's aura to 20% before Blake headshot it with Gambol Shroud. Feeling her semblance fighting to take control she yelled out.

"Get out of the way my semblance is gonna take over, I can't do anything. _I don't want to hurt anybody_ " She whispered the last part to herself as she let the fire inside of her consume her.

_ **(felt like I should say this part is gonna be nailed to Jaune's 3rd person perspective because before I was just jumping around)**

Jaune opened his eyes and sat up, only to feel a jolt of pain in his side and shoulder upon further inspection he saw claw marks and a dislocated shoulder. Suddenly he remembered diving in front of Yang, _I'm so stupid, why didn't I use my shield at least I saved her_. With a groan he got off of the table he was placed on and stood up checking himself for any other injuries, which he didn't have thanks to Ren unbeknownst to him.

Jaune peeked his head outside of the tent hoping to see his friends fighting side by side on a pile of Grimm corpses. Instead he looked outside to see PNR fighting all the smaller Grimm, while RWB stayed far enough away from Yang that they wouldn't get burned but close enough that they could try to defend her while she delivered constant haymakers with fire covering her. Jaune walked back into the tent and picked up his sword, since he couldn't use his shield he just put it in its sheath because of his bad arm, and hell if he died today he wouldn't use it again _stop Jaune_. He stepped out to the surprise of Ren and started walking towards the fiery blonde currently burning herself out.

"What's happening!?" Jaune asked

"She couldn't control the rage from her semblance, so now she's going berserk!" Blake responded out of breath from fighting so many Grimm.

"The real question is" Ren shouted from across the battlefield "how are you even moving right now?"

"I'm fine, I mean I'm standing right" Jaune added dryly before looking at Yang and asking. "Ruby! have you ever calmed Yang down in this stage before?"

"Nope, usually we just wait until she burns out, but her aura is too low, she'll die before she stops!" Ruby responded. Jaune watched as Ruby used her semblance and tried to knock Yang out, since shooting her might kill her Ruby attempted to just bash Yang with a folded up Crescent Rose. Only to get some intense burns when she got close, so she backed off and decided to let someone else try and calm down the blonde inferno. Jaune steeled himself for the heroic yet moronic act he was about to do, _if I was stronger we wouldn't even be in this mess, you messed up now Jaune and now you've got to save your friends._

"I'll die before any one of my best friends do, I'm going in" Jaune spoke with a look of terror yet pride in his eyes.

"Jaune you're aura has to be in the red, you can't go in" Ren pleaded

"You know that I have to do this Ren. I simply cannot sit idly while Yang burns herself out."

With that Jaune started to run towards the barbaric blonde Yang with glowing red eyes and fiery hair. The the heat began to hit Jaune, at first it didn't bother him, but as he got closer he broke out into a sweat as the heat became unbearable. Suddenly a white light started to emanate and when it faded Jaune's aura was full, and he had glowing white armor similar to what a knight would wear surrounding him. His sword had electricity flowing through, but he put it away and opened his shield which had grown even larger and hefted it. Feeling rejuvenated Jaune sped up and got close to Yang, she turned to him with rage in her eyes as she screamed.

"Get away from me if you know what's good for you!"

"You don't mean that Yang, you don't want to hurt me right" He replied

"Don't test me Jaune, you don't know anything about me!" Was all Yang said before charging at Jaune with her weapons ready to fire.

Jaune figured she was gonna rush him so he sidestepped her rush and got into a defensive stance which consisted of him crouching behind his shield since he didn't want to hurt her anymore than she was already hurting herself. Yang turned around from her missed strike and unleashed a devastating punch dead center on his shield which made Jaune lose feeling in his shield arm making him drop his shield leaving him defenseless to Yang's assault. Yang looked scared for a moment before looking at Jaune and yelling.

"See, I'm a monster and you know it. Get away from me!"

Jaune just shook his head and replied "I'm staying right here Yang, we both know you're not a monster, no matter what happens here, you'll still be the nice and beautiful Yang Xiao Long." And with that Jaune hunkered down and prepared for Yang's careless charge. As her fist connected with his new chestplate he grabbed her arm and brought her with him which was a sizeable distance given the strength of her punch. As they flew through the air Jaune let out an unmanly scream as he skid through the dirt with Yang in his arms, his new armor dissipated and left him holding a still on fire Yang. He tightened his grip on her so she couldn't leave and focused on trying to calm her down by whispering soothingly.

"Just calm down Yang, Ruby's fine, your teams fine, everythings gonna be alright" He didn't think his words were getting to the angry brawler, but as his aura began to go down because of the fire covering Yang he felt the fire begin to die down. Until her red eyes returned to a nice lilac and her fire died out, then she promptly passed out with Jaune still holding her. Jaune grabbed his scroll with his good arm and sighed, his aura was right back to 20%, he just couldn't catch a break-not that he was gonna complain-he was still saving people it was just how he had gone about doing it. With that though in his mind Jaune too passed out with a rather warm Yang in his arms.

 **Sorry, this chapter was originally intended to be longer but I found that this was a natural stopping place. Eventually I want to get longer chapters going but I'm still going about getting a rhythm in my writing, since it's my first fic. Please leave a review if you liked and tell my if you see any really bad grammatical mistakes.**

 **P.S the part about semblances and aura is just my theory on how they work**


	3. Up

**Sorry for the delay I was out of town for a couple days, I'm glad you guys like this story and thanks for the reviews, special shoutout to** **BananaFoxKayri** **for the helpful tips and nice reviews they really helped me to keep going when I thought no one was reading. Thats it, read and enjoy!**

 **Chapter 3: Up**

Jaune opened his eyes and groaned with a sense of Déjà vu. A sharp stab of pain rushed through his side as he tried to sit up, only to find that he was slung over someone's shoulder. He turned his head to side to figure out who was carrying him and found himself looking into the turquoise eyes of his ginger haired teammate who was clearly ecstatic that her leader was awake. She took a deep breath before deciding to fill her leader in on what happened after he went into 'knight mode', as Nora liked to call it.

"Jauney we were so worried we thought Yang beat you up too much, but then you took a nap so we decided that you'd probably be ok, then Yang woke up and wanted to carry you but I said 'No that's my teammate I'm carrying him 'till he wakes up." She paused, giving Jaune the chance to reassure Nora that he was, in fact, okay.

"No need to worry Nora, It's gonna take a lot more than a fist to take me out." He patted the girls head before adding in "but you can let me down now, Nora I'm good." Said girl eyed him suspiciously before lightly setting him down. She observed him as he stumbled around until he looked like he had control of himself, then she darted over to Ren to talk with him.

Jaune's whole body ached when he touched the ground. He noted that while his shoulder seemed to be in better shape, his back wasn't faring nearly as well. Nonetheless, he gained his composure and walked confidently, not wanting to burden his friends any more than he already had. Speaking of his friends, Jaune was wondering why nobody had talked to him besides Nora. Looking ahead of him he saw that they were looking for a new place to set up camp for the night keeping watch in case any Grimm tried to sneak up on the group.

He walked through the pain for about 5 minutes until he tripped on a root leaving him sprawled out face first on the ground. He went to get up but his back started to spasm rendering him unable to stand up or move for the matter. Still he tried his damnedest to get up. The effort caused him to see stars until he was finally relieved when two strong yet protective arms grabbed him and started carrying him bridal style. When he looked up he saw the beautiful, bewitching blonde, Yang, looking into his eyes with worry bleeding from her gaze.

"I'm fine Yang, don't worry about me. You guys should keep looking for shelter." The blushing blonde said weakly.

"I'm not gonna buy that shit Jaune. You're hurt and it's because of me, so just relax." Yang snapped.

The dejected blonde looked at the ground, unsure of what to say besides a whispered apology. Jaune had no idea where her anger was coming from, but he decided somehow it was his fault and resigned his sight to the grass below him.

Yang looked at the knight's disheartened expression with shame in her heart. She hadn't meant to snap at the boy but the day had begun to take its toll on her. She knew that that was not a good excuse for her losing her composure and that she would have to apologize, but she had no idea what to say. Frankly, Yang just wanted to go back to the dorm and sleep, but that was something to look forward to she figured. She focused back onto the resident blonde goofball in her arms.

 _I'll just give it to him straight. He'll understand me, it is Jaune after all._ _But what if he doesn't? I mean he's had a worse day by far. Why do I get to complain when he hasn't said a single thing about it? And why do I care so much it's just Jaune!?_

Yang decided to wing it as she called his name to get his attention. She felt him jolt upright looking for who called his name. _He was sleeping_ she thought, before calling his name again to signal that she was the voice who woke him up. Jaune, quickly remembering what had transpired earlier, looked down at his hands and started to twiddle his thumbs. He was staring at them intently as if they held the answers to all of his questions at the moment. She coughed to get his full attention before starting to speak.

"Uh, Jaune I'm sorry about snapping at you earlier, you were just trying to be nice and I yelled at you. I mean this day has been pretty taxing on us all, and yea, sorry." Yang mentally chastised herself for babbling until the blue-eyed blonde looked up and responded with,

"Apology accepted Yang."

"Really?" She questioned, a big shocked that she had been so easily forgiven. Jaune grabbed her shoulder and nodded.

"I know how hard the day has been on you Yang, plush there's no point in holding a grudge for just a small slip-up right? I mean I always mess up so why should I hold it against you?" Yang was shocked the knight had a lot more too him than fake confidence and cheesy jokes. She made a mental note to plan on really getting to know the guy currently in her arms when they got back to Beacon.

She was jerked from her thoughts when Blake called out to her saying something she couldn't hear yet. Yang focused on Blake until she got close enough for her to hear that they were going to go up into the trees for the night. She nodded to show she heard Blake and turned to the nearest tree in order to scale it.

"Jaune, get on my back so I can maneuver better and not fall." The lilac eyed girl ordered. Jaune complied and gently got himself onto her back as she began her ascension of the tree.

Yang tried just scaling the tree, but the branches were too high up for her to get high enough before sliding back down the tree due to lack of a strong foothold. She determined that it would be easier to take a running start. She did just that, jumping into the tree and vaulting herself up with her legs. She just barely caught onto the lowest branch with one hand, but she made it.

"Careful now Sun Dragon, I don't wanna fall twice today" The tentative blonde joked. Yang shot him a playful glare at the nickname he had just came up with before returning to the tree she was climbing. Jaune watched as the blonde brawler hoisted herself up onto the branch and began pulling herself up higher and higher until they reached a point where if Jaune looked down he felt nauseous.

They had almost reached the apex of the tree and Jaune had to close his eyes to keep himself from getting sick. He opened his eyes when they stopped moving and Yang tried to carefully bring Jaune back into the bridal carry as she analyzed the branch and how she wanted to proceed with their sleeping arrangements.

"Uh, so are you gonna drop me off on another branch?" Jaune asked hoping it wouldn't come down to what he suspected.

Yang answered by sitting down with her back resting on the core of the tree and closing her eyes. Jaune groaned, causing Yang to open her eyes and give him a look of feigned confusion.

"Don't wanna sleep with a pretty girl, lover boy?" Yang teased. Now, Jaune liked girls as much as anyone else but the situation was bound to be made awkward by his social ineptitude.

"No Yang, it's just I'm already awkward enough as is, this situation will amplify my awkwardness and will make me embarrass myself more than I already have. Then you'll judge me and won't talk to me anymore!" The embarrassed knight quickly finished before putting his head in his hands.

Yang looked down at a very vulnerable looking Jaune and decided that her next words would need to be chosen carefully as to not hurt his confidence more than he already had. She looked right into his big ocean blue eyes, which made him look like an oversized child as he looked back up at her. She wasn't sure where the sudden insecurity was coming from. Her best guess was that the events of the day had finally caught up with the boy, subsequently giving him a mental breakdown.

"You know we're all friends here, right Jaune?" Yang asked.

"Well, I mean Weiss doesn't like me, and I have no idea why" He whispered not trusting his voice to get any higher.

"Weiss is slowly warming up to all of us. Give her time and we'll melt through that icy exterior of hers. But, you didn't answer my question. Jaune, are we all friends here?" The careful brawler asked, curious as to what his answer would be.

"Well I'm friends with all my teammates," Jaune paused before continuing "and Ruby, she was my first friend, I just told you about Weiss, I haven't had a full conversation with Blake so I think she doesn't like me." He took a shaky breath not realizing he had started to shake and his heart had sped up. "You always tease me, and I know you're joking Yang, but it still hurts, I don't hold it against you. I mean you have no ill intent it's just who you are, but everything you say has some truth in it. 'Jaune win a fight against Pyrrha? Yeah okay, in his dreams' I'm so weak my fighting skills are a common joke at the table. Hell, even my name is a joke, 'You Jaune'd it' 'Now you've Jaune'd it this time Ruby' I usually just laugh it off, but when I'm alone with myself all I can think of is how much of a failure I am."

The knight took a shaky breath, he hadn't meant to rant at Yang, but once he started he couldn't stop as he poured out all of his insecurities to a person he wasn't even such good friends with.

Yang just looked at the blonde in her lap. She was at a loss of words. She had never thought Jaune was so self-depreciative of himself. He took every tease she threw at him in stride, but she never thought it messed with the boy too much. Then again that's probably why he took it so easily, he believed everything they said. This realization made Yang sick to her stomach. Her good natured jokes were just destroying Jaune slowly. She grabbed Jaune's shaking hands with her own.

"Jaune, I'm so sorry. I basically just made fun of and pretty much tormented you for the past year, and yet you still saved my life two times today. I'll make it up to you I swear."

"Sun dragon, apology accepted again. Besides, it's fine. You didn't know you were hurting me it's ok, really." Jaune replied with a laugh.

"How can you just forgive me like that Jaune?" The blonde beauty asked with genuine confusion.

He just responded with a shrug before resting his head on her stomach. He took care in being very cautious, almost as if he was maneuvering around glass. Yang smiled at how he acted like a timid child around her. She found it cute, but his rant from earlier had upset her. _How can Jaune just bottle up all his emotions like that, that can't be good for him_?

The knight readjusted accidentally bumping into a fleshy ball, realizing what it was he froze looking into the brawler's eyes. She laughed before running her hands through his hair. It calmed him down instantly, she used to do it to Ruby when she was stressed, and it just felt right running it through his surprisingly soft blonde hair. She felt his tense muscles relax against her.

"Hey, Yang?"

"Yea?"

"You hit like a truck," Jaune stated, earning a chuckle from Yang. He thought for a moment and added quickly, "But it was worth getting hit because I saved you." He slowly settled down to sleep after that letting exhaustion take over his aching body. The pair must have looked pretty funny, Yang thought, considering he was taller than her so his legs went way past hers. She shivered, she hadn't noticed but the air had cooled down significantly since they got up to the top of the tree. So she used her semblance to warm both of them up since they had no protection from the wind up there.

Yang kept running her fingers through his hair until she felt the rising and falling of his chest get into a rhythm, signaling that he had fallen asleep. She rested her arms on top of his chest before falling into a peaceful slumber too.

 **Jaune's got some problems eh? I mean we can't have perfect characters, cause what's the fun in that? I'm trying to get a longer length per chapter going, but this week was bad because as I previously stated I left town twice, but at least I got myself a beta, so chapter grammer and quality should improve. I'll delve deeper into his problems soon.**

 **Please don't be afraid to leave a review or fav Thanks for reading!**


	4. Terror

**Chapter 4: Terror**

The wind cut at his face while he sprinted towards the battlefield. He had no idea how things had got this way as he began to notice the sea of blood covering the grass he stood on.

To his left, Pyrrha's mangled body lay there missing an arm and still bleeding. Nora and Ren lay on top of each other ridden with claw marks and teeth marks alike. He turned around, and let whatever was left in his stomach come out. He then turned back around and looked to his right where he saw the remnants of what was team RWBY. Weiss was cut in half with dried blood covering her. All that was left of Blake was her upper half, her lower half was out of sight and probably eaten or destroyed. Yang lay on the ground, or what he assumed was Yang since all that was there was a charred corpse.

He heard a cough from Ruby who was missing her left leg as well as her arms, Jaune rushed towards her with tears streaming down his face as he asked.

"What do I do, Ruby? How did this happen?"

"This is all your fault, Jaune, you're the reason we all died here." The armless redhead said with dead eyes as Jaune responded crying out.

"But I'm not dead, I'm alive right here!" Ruby just responded with a laugh before dying right before him. Jaune looked down at his own body noticing that he was missing his right arm at the shoulder, and that he had a giant hole in his chest. Looking up to his horror, he saw his own dead body laying on the ground right in front of him. All he heard was screaming as he collapsed onto the blood at his feet.

Suddenly, he felt something shake him. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into lilac orbs that he recognized as Yang's. He realized that he was just in a nightmare, and promptly began to sob into the other blonde's chest as she comforted him. She waited, knowing he would tell her what happened when he was ready.

He got all of the tears out of his system before sitting up, shaking his head, and trying to shake the thoughts of his nightmare out of his memory. This was to no avail, because when he closed his eyes to gather his thoughts the images of his dead comrades plagues his mind. He ceased crying, but clung tightly to Yang until the images left his head.

"Sorry for waking you up Yang." Jaune said sheepishly.

"Jaune don't worry about it, what I'm worried about is what made you scream like that in your sleep?" The fiery blonde asked. Her concern for him was prominent in her tone.

"Nightmare" Jaune whispered still clinging to Yang as he felt a cold sweat break out. She gave him a look that told him to he needed to elaborate. He took a breath and prepared himself to repeat what he had just saw.

"Everyone was dead. You, Ruby, Pyrrha, everyone, and it was all my fault I was the reason they died. It was so realistic I could've swore it was real, then I saw my own dead body laying on the ground." The knight finished quickly, not wanting to dwell on the subject any more than he had to.

Yang just responded by running her fingers through hair once again, comforting him. The images didn't leave his mind, but he began to relax before he suggested that they start to descend towards the ground since the sun had begun to rise. The blonde responded by putting him on her back and starting the climb down slowly.

Once Yang reached the ground Jaune hopped off her back and stretched the muscles he had been neglecting ever since he passed out.

"My aura healed me up pretty fast, I feel like a million bucks!" Jaune said loudly pulling out his sword and swinging it around a couple times before asking. "Who packed the food for the trip, anyway?"

"Ren, the master chef, of course." His fellow blonde responded with a laugh.

"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear." the knight said gesturing to a tired looking Ren followed by an energetic Nora. "She keep you up all night, Ren?" Jaune asked.

"You know the answer to that, Jaune." Ren deadpanned as he began to set up and make breakfast.

The smell of the delicious breakfast being made soon brought everyone together as they began to wake up. Pyrrha and Blake were the last people to show up. Much to the chagrin of Blake, Yang began to tease the two about what they were doing that took them so long. Her snide remarks caused Pyrrha's face turn as red as her hair. The grumpy feline retorted with her own teasing, commenting about how she could 'say the same to them'. This surprised Yang and further embarrassed a red faced Jaune who just continued to look down at his plate.

"Meow! This kitty's got claws!" Yang responded, not fazed at all from the teasing.

"Anyway we're talking about tall, blonde, and-" Yang paused as she noticed Jaune drop his shoulders as she began to tease the other blonde. _I gotta stop doing that_. She chided herself before adding "Jaune's too nice to take advantage of a _tempting_ girl like me." Yang finished smiling at Jaune who perked up at the compliment. After that, everyone ate their breakfast in silence, basking in the warming temperature as the sun rose higher. When they finished eating, Ruby stood up and cleared her throat to catch everyone's attention.

"Alright friends yesterday was pretty rough, but today is a new day and we should put yesterday past us if we want to finish this mission. That being said we will be taking it slow so we can have all our energy tomorrow when we will reach our destination. So make sure your things are ready because we'll be heading out in 15 minutes. Thank you." Ruby finished before sitting down and continuing conversation with an Weiss who looked annoyed at being up so early.

Jaune made his way to Pyrrha, wanting to catch up with his amazonian partner since he hadn't talked to her since the first fight. He waved at her and she moved to be closer to him.

"How're you doing Pyr?" Jaune asked, looking at his partner. She didn't respond. He carefully tapped her shoulder, confused as to why she wasn't answering. "Talk to me, Pyrrha. What's going o-" The knight was unable to finish because Pyrrha had punched him in the gut. He doubled over. When he looked up he finally noticed the tears in her eyes. He tried to ask his question again but she began to scream at him.

"Do you know how it felt watching you almost die twice!? Not knowing whether you were alive was terrifying! My best friend bleeding out, then charging back in and almost dying again!" She stopped talking wiping the tears from her eyes and staring Jaune down.

Jaune truly didn't think about how his actions would cause his friends to worry, but now that he reflected on what happened yesterday he realized how that could cause his friend's distress.

"I-I-I mean Pyrrha, you know what kind of person I am... and you definitely know that I couldn't live with myself if I let anyone else get hurt because of how weak I am!" He responded, keeping his tone even and steady so he didn't set her off again.

"I know Jaune, but I couldn't bear losing you, I just hate seeing you get hurt like that." The redhead said quietly.

"I'll try not to worry you as much anymore. I'm really sorry, Pyr." Jaune said, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly and standing up. He then walked over to the scythe wielding leader of the group who was analyzing a map. He studied the map silently over her shoulder as she made marks and dashes on it trying to figure out the best route to take to get to their destination.

Suddenly Jaune got a great idea, and with a mischievous grin he yelled, "Boo!" successfully scaring the living shit out of Ruby. She responded with an "Eep!" and turned around to punch Jaune. She began yelling about how one of these times she'll pull a scythe on him.

Jaune just laughed it off and got himself situated on the other side of the map from Ruby in order to help her map out their path for the day. This basically consisted of him nodding and making small suggestions as she drew and erased paths towards their destination marked with a big red X. When everything was planned out and they were folding up the map, Jaune patted Ruby on the back.

"You really got your shit together as leader Ruby, keep up the good work." This earned him a blush from Ruby at his random compliment. She looked up at Jaune and was surprised to see that he had bags starting to form under his eyes. She figured that either he just couldn't sleep last night or the mission had started to get to him. Either way she decided to bring it up for the sake of their mission.

"You sleep alright Jaune?" She commented, not sounding too serious so she didn't alarm him.

"Yea, I'm fine Ruby. Don't worry about me, let's just worry about the mission." Jaune said, using his best fake smile to properly convince her that everything was alright, like he always did at home when teachers would ask the same. Ruby frowned. She wasn't satisfied with his answer but he was still right about focusing on the mission. She let him go and yelled for everyone to gather up their things so they could get going.

As everyone assembled, Ruby quickly started messing around on her scroll before looking up to see the group was all assembled around her waiting on her to finish. Seeing as they were waiting on her, she cleared her throat once again to get everyone's full attention.

"Alright guys, so to reiterate we're taking today slowly so we can all be at 100% for the end of the mission. Jaune and I mapped out our course of action and destination, which I have marked on your maps that I just sent to you on your scroll. We'll get there around dark if we just walk with a moderate pace, so we just take it slow, set up camp, then sleep and wake up at 8 a.m to finish the mission. Any objections or ideas?"

"Just one," Nora said cheerfully "Snack breaks, especially pancake breaks." Everyone groaned collectively and favored starting off towards their destination rather than responding to her.

The walk was pleasant, both teams enjoying the good weather and calm marching towards their destination. Still, they were caution as to not catch unwanted attention from the wildlife. In fact, their good spirits helped keep the creatures of Grimm off their tracks since they were attracted to negative thoughts.

With Ruby leading the pack, she walked confidently, consulting her map every so often to make sure she was leading everyone the right way. While doing all that she was also thinking about the actual leader of the mission who seemed to be hiding something from both of their teams. She had told herself she would wait till the mission ended, but her curiosity got the better of her as she thought of a plan of action to figure out what he was hiding. She was about to go ask him herself when she remembered that she had told him she wouldn't pursue anymore during the mission.

She mentally checked Jaune off of her mental list of who she could ask. Next up was Pyrrha. However, Ruby knew that the amazon was head over heels for the blonde and figured that Pyrrha would probably tell Jaune that Ruby had been asking questions about him the first chance she got. She was crossed off of the list next.

Ruby wondered again who she could ask, before facepalming at the realization that she had forgotten about her own sister, Yang. The blonde duo had spent quite a bit of time together on the mission. She found Yang and asked bluntly,

"What's Jaune hiding?" A look of shock flashed across her sister's face before she regained a cool composure and answered with her own question innocently.

"What are you doing poking around in his business, Cutie Patootie?" Ruby pouted because Yang knew that nickname annoyed her but she still called her it just to upset her.

"We need Jaune to be in a good condition for the end of the mission. We have no idea what we're up against and he can't be hindered by other things that aren't the battle." Ruby replied keeping her voice quiet so the others wouldn't hear what was going on. Yang realized Ruby wouldn't stop until she got a good enough answer.

"All I can say is Jaune was a little shaken up this morning but he's fine now, so just calm down, Ruby. It won't affect his fighting." And with that Yang walked over towards her partner and started chatting with her, leaving Ruby to her own devices. Said redhead racked her mind for things Jaune would want to hide from everyone.

 _6th toe, sickness, self doubt?_

During her thinking, Ruby managed to stumble through some bushes and ended up staring right at the back of a beowolf. She froze in fear, certain that she looked exactly like a deer in headlights.

Suddenly, she was pulled backwards by an unseen force and ended back up on the right side of the brush with a concerned heiress staring her down using her best 'we'll talk later' face.

Motioning to the whole group, Ruby pointed to her right with her other hand on her lips, telling the group to be silent. The calm that had settled around them was violently yanked away and replaced with a sense of danger and urgency as they quickly jogged as far away from the Grimm as they could.

Seeing that they were out of earshot Weiss began to scold her.

"What were you doing out there, are you trying to get yourself killed?" Not letting Ruby answer the question she continued, "How many times do I have to tell you not to be a dunce and do things like that? The answer is a lot!" She snapped before calming down and finishing thoughtfully. "We care about you, and we don't want to see you get hurt. We would only blame ourselves."

"I know Weiss, I'm sorry I'll try harder not to worry you as much." Ruby replied before darting away to avoid anymore scolding from the Ice Queen. While Ruby ran ahead again, Weiss walked over to Pyrrha, who nudged her with a playful smile on her face.

"Sounds pretty similar to what I said to Jaune earlier, are you an eavesdropper, Ice Queen?" She teased a blushing heiress who began to try and defend herself.

"How dare you insinuate that I, Weiss Schnee, would eavesdrop on a conversation between friends and then steal a line from said conversation." She used her best glare to try and convince Pyrrha, but the glare only made the Mistral champion laugh more. She walked towards the embarrassed heiress, who was so flustered she stomped away, yelling curses as she did so.

The rest of the walk went on without a hitch as the group came upon their destination, a grassy clearing adjacent to a lake. It looked beautiful to everyone, especially with the dazzling sunset dancing color off the lake's surface. The group would have liked to bask in the sight for longer, but unfortunately, duty calls.

Ignoring the view, they began setting down their bags and setting up tents for everyone to sleep in. They all appreciated the thought that Ruby put into picking the spot. It was a great spot for them to keep watch since there was only one way for creatures to enter the campsite. That was through roughly 200 yards of grass after exiting the woods. This would give anyone the time to acknowledge the threat and wake others up to kill it silently so to not alert anything else of their whereabouts. Jaune complimented said red haired leader on her choice of location with a pat on the back. Ruby responded to this with a smile and a "Thank you!" clearly appreciating the compliment. She was suddenly distracted as she rushed away, yelling at Nora who was trying to hammer a stake into the ground with Magnhild.

With eight pairs of hands to help, the setup went by quickly and soon they were ready to get some sleep so that they were prepared for their final day of the mission tomorrow. First however, they had to determine who was taking watch and since they were waking up at 8 am sharp and it was approaching midnight, they had to decide quickly. Jaune volunteered to be first, followed by Ruby, Yang (no one was brave enough to wake Yang up from her beauty sleep besides Ruby), Ren, Blake, Nora, and finally Pyrrha.

With the order known, the seven hunters and huntresses went off to bed, leaving the blonde knight to reflect on the mission as a whole. He wasn't sure how he'd done it, but he survived to his second year at beacon and had made a lot of new friends. Jaune smiled to himself and looked back out into the forest, continuing his watch for anything that may want to make it's way towards their current base of operations. He felt a rush of overprotective for the friends who were sleeping peacefully around him, and he decided that he would not let anything bad happen to them, not on his watch.

 **Sorry for the delay guys, this chapter was a transition chapter, and boy was it a bitch and a half to write. You see I knew where to start this story and where I want to go, but getting there was hard to write, but I got there and here I am and at least I got like 3k. Thanks for reading, hopefully the next chapter is faster to come out cause I know what I want to do. Bye!**


	5. Going Down

Sorry for the delay guys, this chapter was a transition chapter, and boy was it a bitch and a half to write. You see I knew where to start this story and where I want to go, but getting there was hard to write, but I got there and here I am and at least I got like 3k. Thanks for reading, hopefully the next chapter is faster to come out cause I know what I want to do. Bye!

Chapter 5: Going Down

Blake wouldn't consider herself a morning person per se, but spending a majority of her life in the White Fang who had a 'wake up after 7 and you won't get breakfast' attitude gave her a push to become one whether she wanted to or not. Due to this, she was up far earlier than any of her teammates. With a silent groan, she sat up and stretched out her sore muscles. The motion caused her to feel some satisfying pops in her joints as she began to stand up.

Peeking her head outside the tent, she was surprised at the lack of darkness, darkness that should have been surrounding her. Instead the sun was beginning to rise. This confused Blake because her shift for watch should've started in darkness and ended with the sun rising as when she was supposed to tag Nora in. She got a bad feeling in her stomach as she stepped outside of her tent and began looking around, unsure of what was going on. Walking around she noticed a figure with a mop of blonde hair slumped over and staring at the woods.

"Jaune?" The faunus asked, confused as to why he was up and not Ren. He waved her off and continued to stare off into the woods. "What are you doing up Jaune?" She pressed.

"I figured that since I'm the worst fighter, I'd stay up the whole night so you guys would be ready to fight tomorrow." Jaune said quietly, keeping his gaze towards the forest. Blake was surprised, she didn't give Jaune enough credit for how selfless he was, but this was just outright dumb. She could see where his thought process was but it was still flawed, despite his good intentions.

"Jaune that was probably the dumbest thing you could have done, we'll need all 8 people today, and with you almost dying twice yesterday I can't imagine how you're standing right now." Blake said with a grumpy tone at an exhausted Jaune who didn't have the energy to fight with her.

"I know Blake, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that. How can I make it up to everyone?" He said looking at Blake with his eyes half closed.

"Just go to sleep Jaune I'll take over, then I'll leave you to the others." She said with a smirk, knowing that one of them would give him hell for pulling that.

Nodding, he trudged towards his sleeping quarters and promptly passed out once his head hit the ground. The impact made a resounding thud that Blake heard from her position. She gave a little smile at the tired blonde before focusing on the forest in front of her.

After that that Blake was left with her own thoughts for the next hour until she heard the others begin to wake up. She left her watching position when she smelled Ren's cooking, knowing that any stragglers (besides Jaune) would wake up to the sweet smell of bacon and pancakes. She walked over to said food and began silently eating her share as everyone shambled towards the food clearly exhausted. No one was chit chatting, waiting until they had consumed enough food and were awake enough to properly think. Blake and Jaune were the only morning people in the group.

The group finished up their breakfast and began to fully wake up. After Nora had gotten her fill of pancakes, she suddenly looked around, seeming very confused.

"Where's Jauney?" Blake lips twitched up to form a smirk and she mentally apologized to Jaune before answering.

"He stayed up till 7 and his excuse was 'I'm the worst fighter and you guys will need your strength.' He would still be up if I didn't wake up and make him go to bed. So our fearless leader is currently passed out, and you will not wake him up until he wakes up on his own, Yang."

Said blonde paused as she was halfway to Jaune's tent, probably about to exchange some not so kind words with the poor boy.

"I just wanted to talk to our knight in shining armor, Blakey." Yang said sweetly, but the malicious grin on her face said otherwise.

"I want to knock some sense into him too Yang, don't worry. But lets not forget he almost died 2 days ago and hasn't taken a break. I think he deserves this rest." She finished before walking away to grab her weapon. She had decidedly reached her speaking quota for the day, preferring to observe more than talk. The Mistral champion chose to speak up now that Blake left with her apologies.

"I should've known Jaune would do this, and I should've made sure he didn't do it. Sorry guys." She mumbled. Ren looked up at her apologetically.

"It's not your fault that Jaune stayed up, it was his choice not yours. Pyrrha you don't have to take responsibility for his actions." Pyrrha smiled, he was right of course. The ever quiet Ren was always right whenever he decided to chime in during conversation.

After breakfast they decided to pack up and head to their point of interest. They made sure to contact Ozpin to inform him that they were about to head out there. Before they could leave though, they had to get the knight out of his tent.

Pyrrha, Yang, and Nora were all trying to figure out who would carry him, when Ren took matters into his own hands and walked into the tent. He heaved Jaune onto his shoulder in an attempt to try and help his only guy friend out and give him a couple more minutes of sleep. The girls would have for sure woken him up with the debate they were having.

He ducked out of the tent and gestured towards Jaune's armor, sword, and shield before walking over towards Ruby to ask where they were going that day.

"Well, I mean I think we'll go down this path," she pointed in the direction of said path before continuing, "Which will take us right into the heart of the Grimmfestation as I like to call it. From there we can decide what to do, and if we head off now we'll arrive in about 2 hours. Alright?" Ren just answered with a nod and got ready to head off.

Eventually they set off towards their destination. They were about 10 minutes out when the group had begun to get antsy. An unnatural silence surrounded them as they marched. Weiss snapped, annoyance clear on her face.

"Just wake the dunce up so we can end this damn quiet!" None of them were too surprised at the Heiresses outburst because she tended to do that when she's annoyed.

Ren's only answer was shaking Jaune, who was still cast over his shoulder, until he awoke with a start. He realized where he was and then began yelling about how he always ended up being carried. Ren quickly slid him off of his shoulder.

"Where are we?" Jaune asked, realizing he had no idea where he was. He was answered with silence as everyone of the group stared at him, only causing him to be more confused. That is, until he remembered what he did last night. He suddenly felt a wave of fear as Yang walked towards him. She pointed a finger in his face.

"What's you're middle name Arc?" She demanded.

Caught completely by surprise, Jaune sputtered out something that sounded vaguely like Micheal.

"Well Jaune Micheal Arc, I'm gonna kick your ass into next week when we get back for that hero bullshit you pulled back there. You're part of this 8 person family which means we all help each other. Not one person holds all the weight until they crack, got it?" Jaune began to answer before Yang stopped him by adding "And don't even try to tell me you're worth less than us. We're all worth the same amount. We're equals. That's what being part of a team is about."

Jaune just opted to nod at this point, looking down at his feet and feeling ashamed. He knew that he messed up. Seeing how Jaune reacted Nora decided to swoop in by saying cheerily.

"Don't worry Jauney she said she'll pummel you after the mission so at least you have a couple more hours to live!" Nora piped up cheerfully.

"Gee thanks Nora, you always know exactly what to say to cheer me up." Jaune said, sarcasm dripping from his words. Nora, being usual herself, didn't quite pick up on the sarcasm and gave Jaune a thumbs up. Jaune sighed before changing the conversation quickly.

"Where is the spot we're going to anyway, guys?"

"I'm glad you asked Jaune because as of right now, we are right next to the two mile radius Ozpin told us about that the grim were all in." Ruby responded before dramatically moving the brush out of the way to show an empty clearing sparse of any Grimm. "Darn it," She exclaimed, "That was supposed to be cool, and there should've been a ton of Grimm. But this… this is really weird. I mean this is where he said they were, but... nothing's here." She sounded genuinely confused. "I'm gonna call Ozpin for a pickup, lets look around to try and get an idea on what's happening."

Ruby said as she started getting out her scroll and stepping into the clearing, the confusion evident on her face.

Everyone fanned out across the clearing and started looking around for any signs of what had happened. Suddenly, after looking closely at the ground, Blake called out.

"I can see tracks everywhere that indicates that this place was packed with Grimm. Ruby would you mind checking the perimeter to see if there's a defined exit point where the Grimm left?" Ruby just nodded since she was currently talking to Ozpin. She used her semblance to dart off around the perimeter.

5 minutes passed and the team began to grow frustrated as there was nothing but Grimm tracks in the clearing. Everyone was slowly getting impatient in their fruitless efforts to yield results, but Yang was the only one to show it.

"Where the hell is Ruby I want out of here, this whole thing is just super weird!"

As if on cue 5 people came out of the brush behind them. Ruby was being held at the throat with a purple bruise that was rapidly fading from the right side of her face. Her captor was Adam Taurus. Behind him was Cinder, followed by Mercury and Emerald close behind her.

Jaune looked at his friends, his team was worried but fine nonetheless. WBY was not doing so well. Blake and Weiss both seemed to be glaring at the guy in the mask while Jaune could feel the heat starting to come off of Yang's body that with the murderous looks she was giving the group. Yang was about to say something when Ruby gasped out with a sudden breath.

"Sorry guys, they ambushed me and took me by surprise." Jaune now started moving towards Yang who was shaking with rage at this point. He didn't want her to do anything that could get Ruby hurt so he wrapped his arms around her stomach and ignored the heat radiating from her. He asked the group a question to play for time.

"What are you doing here?"

Cinder smiled before responding. "Just luring the strongest Hunters and Huntresses here with the help of my special dress." She said calmly showing off the black and white dress, then added "If I pump my aura into this dust infused dress I can attract the attention of the Grimm and bring them in, acting like a beacon for them."

Jaune pondered what she had just said. No one had ever documented being able to do that before, but it sounded like something that could be done. He accepted what she said as the truth but wanted to test her anyway.

"Can you prove it?" Jaune asked

"I will, once you guys drop your weapons because I feel like little red here wouldn't appreciate what'll happen to her if you don't." She responded coolly while smirking at Yang.

"Alright guys lets just set our weapons down," Jaune started, "Yang if you could just collapse your gauntlets." He tapped her wrists, hoping she would comply since the plan he had working in his head needed Yang to not do anything yet to jeopardize Ruby. He needed Ruby out of that guy's hands in order for his master plan to play out right.

After a few seconds Yang conceded and collapsed her gauntlets while the others set down their weapons. They all put their full trust into the knight.

Cinder smiled maliciously as she began to channel her aura into the dress. After a pause Jaune saw some Beowolves burst into the clearing. They looked ready to attack until Cinder pierced them with her shards, ending their lives as their bodies started dissolving.

Holy shit this bitch is powerful, Jaune thought to himself before he asked another question.

"Why are you doing this?" Cinder laughed at the blonde before answering.

"You'd just loooove for me to tell you that, huh?"

"I'd like to know why my murderer killed me before she actually does it, so yeah." Jaune said, his bluntness surprising his friends.

He looked into Cinder's eyes before continuing. "You don't really want to kill Ruby do you? You want me, Jaune Arc, the only male Arc capable of using Crocea Mors or as some call it Yellow Death. Since every Male Arc is destined to fight in wars and turn the tides against the dark side ." Jaune said with no emotion in his voice, shocking his teammates and even Cinder until she regained her composure.

"You're right Jaune, so we can do this two ways. Either you come with us willingly and Ruby doesn't get hurt or, we use force to kill you and your friends."

Jaune released Yang seeing as she had cooled down and was more interested in the conversation that was happening in front of her. She looked at Jaune in awe. He moved to walk up to Adam, trying to mask his fear by holding his head high as he crossed over to where Ruby was being held. The fear he was trying to push down was evident in his voice.

"Willingly it is, I suppose." His mind was racing as he watched Adam carefully. He let go of Ruby and she promptly darted away as fast as she could. Jaune stood perfectly still in front of Adam, who looked over to smile at Cinder before speaking again.

"Any last words."

"Actually yes," He said turning to his friends before continuing, "I'm sorry about how this went down, but you're the greatest friends I ever had." He looked like he was down, but he raised his head with an unreadable look on his face.

"NOW!"

He screamed, shocking his friends into action before reeling back his right fist and adding his aura into it. He hit Adam with a punch so hard it could've rivaled Yang's.

Adam was knocked back into the three others. However, He wasn't dazed for long as Adam quickly shot Wilt out of Blush, sending it straight through Jaune's lower back and causing him to topple over in pain. The knight grit his teeth and ripped the sword out of his body with a scream. He nearly collapsed in pain, but he knew he needed to keep going if he wanted to win. He willed his armor to form around him and to his surprise, it actually did. He decided to use Wilt and his sword currently enveloped in electricity, and with that Jaune stood up evaluating the battle in front of him.

Blake and Weiss immediately rushed Adam, who only had his gun Blush to try and defend himself from the girls who had begun to land some hits on him. That was, until Emerald rushed to his aid, pushing the girls back so he could recover and get ready for battle.

Their fight was turning into a 3v2 because Yang had joined the girls and began to focus her strengths on Emerald. Ruby and Pyrrha seemed to be attacking Cinder with Ruby providing ranged support while the champion got in close to try and hurt the powerful huntress. Their attempts were to no avail as Cinder seemed to be countering or launching shards that cut into Pyrrha. These made her unable to touch the fiery huntress.

Ren and Nora were engaging Mercury, who seemed to be having trouble against the duo. Ren was shooting off Stormflower to keep Mercury at bay while Nora tried to get a hit to connect. Mercury, however, was far too good at spacing himself for the hammer strikes to ever actually touch him.

Mercury suddenly decided that he didn't want to be on the defensive and dodged one of Nora's strikes before rushing towards an off guard Ren.

He wasn't ready to block completely and Mercury had kicked him dead center in the chest. Ren however did have enough time to use his aura to block most of the damage, but he was still knocked back several feet.

Nora started swinging with no thoughts of her own safety. The only thing on her mind was how to crush this man who had hurt her Renny. Any attempts at making planned attacks were abandoned as she started by swinging as hard as she could. Despite her efforts her attacks were only met with air.

After a particularly poorly timed swing, she too got kicked backwards. This time Emerald was behind her as she feel since she had seen this fight going down and decided to help by catching Nora with her Scythe. This made deep gashes up and down her back which started bleeding profusely as soon as Nora hit the ground. The only thing that stopped her from ending Nora's life was Jaune leaping in stood protectively over Nora blocking her scythe's from connecting.

He shoulder bashed Emerald, knocking her away and then turned towards Mercury who was about to take advantage of Jaune fighting her. Mercury was mid kick when Jaune blocked with his sword and stabbed Mercury with Adam's blade in the gut, leaving him there with the sword embedded in him.

Jaune knew they weren't going to win the fight, Yang was having a hard time against Emerald as it was and Adam was actually hurting Blake and Weiss despite it being two against was slowly wearing down the redheads she was fighting.

He was thinking of a way out of it when their escort Bullhead arrived, firing rounds at Cinder who was forced to back off from Pyrrha. Jaune decided to call out to his friends.

"Lets get out of here while we can!" Jaune put Nora on his shoulder and helped pull Ren to his feet. He started towards the ship, not needing to be told twice. The rest of the group staggered their opponents long enough for them to start running towards their escort. Ruby used her sniper rifle to hold back the group they were just fighting.

Once everyone reached the bullhead Ruby clipped it to her back and sprinted out of there. She reached the Bullhead as it began to take off and managed to jump and grab the still lowered platform as it began to fly away.

Ruby tried to pull herself up but couldn't gather the strength, even with Yang rushing over to help her. When Yang reached her she herself almost fell over because the Bullhead was being assaulted by a white fang Bullhead above. Inside was Cinder and the rest of her group who continued hitting their Bullhead with a barrage of bullets and shards (courtesy of Cinder) causing their escape vehicle to shake and bounce around.

Jaune knew they were in trouble, with Nora out of commission they needed to get out of here. But first Ruby needed to get on board, so the knight took charge.

"Weiss we need some defensive glyphs and Pyrrha we need suppressing fire so we can get Ruby in the airship. Don't you dare stop, we need to get Nora medical attention as soon as possible . And Ren," Jaune made eye contact with his friend "Make sure Nora makes it out of here." Jaune didn't stay to see his friend's response. Instead he rushed over to Ruby, Yang, and Blake who were having trouble keeping their balance and helping Ruby up at the same time.

The blonde brawler was holding onto her right arm and the Faunus was holding onto her other, frantically attempting to pull her up. Just when they got her up the ship was hit and lurched to the side knocking all three off the side. The only thing keeping them from fall was Jaune, who had dove forward halfway off the ledge to grab Blake's leg. This left the three girls dangling off the side.

"I can't pull you guys up!" The blonde yelled frantically, he tried to pull them up against but was unable to lift all three girls. Surprisingly, it was Blake who responded.

"Then let go Jaune. We'll try to survive until rescue can come." Jaune turned his head to Ren and yelled to him.

"Tell the pilot to get a little lower!" Ren nodded and told the pilot who quickly descended so they were just above tree level. Then he turned back to the girls and said."If I can't pull you up then I'll come with you." And before they could respond Jaune pushed himself over the edge, holding tight onto Blake's leg as he felt the limbs of the trees begin to slap and slow his fall. He opened his eyes one last time seeing the sun flash in his vision before his consciousness left him.

And that's that hate to leave you on a sort of cliffhanger but it felt like the right place to leave it, next chapter they wake up in the forest. Don't worry Mercury is very much alive Jaune wouldn't kill him unless he had too. I'm doing aura a little different from the show, the way I want aura to work is you need to be good at controlling aura to absorb hits and not get cut up or worse.

Don't be afraid to leave a review it really motivates me to write. Thanks for reading!


	6. Awake

Chapter 6: Awake

The first thing Jaune noticed when he woke up was the blood. Before he even opened his eyes he felt the liquid pooling around him. When he did open his eyes he observed that the sun was out, which meant he wasn't out for too long. Looking around he saw an unconscious Blake to his left a couple feet away, and the sisters to his right farther away than Blake. Jaune, without getting up, took off his shirt and carefully examined where the sword went clear through him.

The hole had started to close, but it was still slowly letting blood out. In order to stop the bleeding he took off his hoodie and shirt, (both having holes in them) and tied his shirt around his waist so he could start applying pressure with his hands. He looked over himself and noted that that was the worst part of his injuries. The remaining were just cuts and bruises from the branches.

Once the bleeding stopped he put his hoodie on over his bare chest and decided he should wake the girls up so they could figure out a plan of action.

He walked over to Blake and then paused, looking for any blatant injuries. He didn't see anything besides a bunch of cuts and bruises so he decided to wake her up. Jaune knelt down and gently shook her shoulder. After not getting a response he shook her harder, hoping to wake her up.

When she still didn't up he began to grow frantic, thoughts of her going into a coma flashed through his mind and he panicked. In his final attempt, he grabbed her shoulders and violently shook back and forth, waking her up with a start.

"Jaune? May I ask why you scared the living shit out of me?" Blake said, confused at the blonde holding onto her shoulders and looking relieved. Said blonde looked at the ground before replying.

"Well Blake, I woke up and saw that you three were still out, so I went to wake you up. However after my first two tries with no effect I began to panic, thinking you had somehow gone into a coma and began to freak out and shaking you violently. Then you woke up and here we are." Jaune said, articulating his words. He was slightly embarrassed at how he had overreacted. Blake chuckled at the boy before responding.

"Jaune, you're fine I only asked because it was pretty jarring, don't worry about it." Suddenly she winced and grabbed her head. "Speaking of jarring, I'm pretty sure I hit the side of my head hard on impact." Jaune looked at her, obviously concerned. She returned it with a look saying 'I'll be fine'. Jaune moved on from the topic at that glare.

"So besides that, anything hurting more than the rest of your body since you literally flew through a forest canopy?" Blake shook her head and stood up. Jaune followed suit and pointed towards the rest of their friends, signaling that they had to wake them up. The faunus didn't even respond and began to walk over towards the passed out duo.

The knight and the assassin looked at Yang, she had a bunch of cuts and bruises like his and Blake's, the obvious difference was her knee it was bent inwards. She wouldn't be walking for a while. That was the worst part of her injuries, he would get back to her but he wanted to see how Ruby was doing first. She was sporting her fair share of cuts and bruises he guessed Yang shielded her as long as she could, she probably let go when her knee injury happened. Jaune wasn't sure what to do next so he asked Blake.

"So uh Blake… what do we do now, we're stranded in the middle of the forest Yang's in bad condition, and with just our weapons and whatever extra stuff Ruby or Yang might have?" Blake simply nodded in response then went over to the scythe-wielder and started to wake her up. Jaune was thinking of what to do with Yang. He already knew waking her up would be a bad idea since no one likes waking up in immense pain. What he was trying to decide was how he was going to carry her so that he didn't agitate her knee. His decision was a fireman's carry since it wouldn't bother her legs at all and leave them to dangle and have no pressure on them.

He flipped Yang over grabbed her, and heaved her over his shoulder, but when he stood up he felt a burning in his chest, followed by pain. He swallowed the ache and walked over to Ruby who just looked at Jaune with puppy dog eyes.

"I'm so sorry Jaune, if I didn't wait so long to retreat this whole thing wouldn't of happened, and now look at Yang. It's all my fault." Jaune looked down into Ruby's silver eyes before responding.

"No. If you didn't stay back and lay down suppressing fire, one of them could've hit us going into the Bullhead and we would be in worse condition than we are now, so your decision was the best decision you could have made." He patted her head reassuringly.

"Well, now that most of us are awake, let's find somewhere to stay for the night." Jaune had no idea where they were in regards of how close they were to leaving the forest, so he chose to just go forward and hope for the best.

They walked in silence for about half an hour, until Jaune felt the weight he had grown accustomed to on his shoulders begin to move. Yang looked around for a moment confused, until she saw her friends and allowed herself to calm down.

"Where are we?" Jaune thought for a moment and was about to respond when Blake began talking.

"Well sleeping beauty if you would like to know, we have no idea. All we know is we crashed through some trees and now we're walking in a random direction in hopes of finding a way out." Yang almost laughed at how direct Blake was, which was to be expected from the faunas.

"You're never afraid to speak the truth, and be as blunt as possible, huh?" Blake acted as if she didn't hear the banged up blonde, instead redirecting her attention to the blonde boy currently carrying her. Yang poked his nose surprising, the boy who looked at her questioningly. She looked at him before saying.

"Jaune, while it was nice of you to carry me all this way, I can walk." Jaune shook his head before responding.

"Do you not remember falling? Your left knee is really fucked up." Yang did remember the fall, but she didn't remember hitting her knee, she assumed she just blocked out the memory. She tried to bend her knee, and was met with a wave of hurt. She yelled out in pain, surprised at how much it hurt and wondering why she didn't notice it earlier.

"Fuck that hurts like a bitch, the trees hit like a truck." Jaune laughed, which in turn made his side hurt worse. He winced in pain before trying to play if off as if he wasn't hurt. Yang saw through him and narrowed her eyes suspiciously before just chalking it up to pain from the fall through a forest canopy.

"You're right I can't walk, but could you at least carry me in a more comfortable position." Jaune quickly apologized and stopped walking so he could focus on moving her without hurting her knee but it was inevitable. When he tried to get her set on his back he hit her knee, causing her to wince. He apologized profusely before Yang reassured him by telling him it was fine and it was bound to happen. Jaune put his hands on her thighs cautiously since it would make it easier to carry the blonde on his back. This elicited a laugh from Yang at how carefully he was acting.

"Don't fly too close to the sun there Icarus, you'll get burned." This only caused Jaune to panic, he was unsure of what to do as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He had no idea on how to respond so he just moved his hands down and responded with silence. Which confused Yang greatly, most boys would be drooling at the chance to cop a feel. But Jaune was trying as hard as he could to not upset her, she knew he was a gentleman but was he scared of her still? She decided that sitting there doing nothing was pointless so she just outright asked him.

"Are you scared of me, Jaune?" She asked quietly, startling the boy who had just begun walking again.

"No Yang, we went over it in the tree, I consider you a close friend. Why do you ask?"

"Because every time I joke with you, you act as if I'm gonna hurt you. Even now I'm trying to tame down my jokes about you. So if you're not scared of me, what is it?." At this Jaune's expression grew serious and he turned his face to make eye contact with Yang. The knight sighed, knowing there was no way out of this.

"I'll give you the full explanation at a better time, but to put it short, there's been a countless number of times where those jokes weren't jokes. So I'm having a hard time adjusting to these jokes, I'm sorry Yang." Yang was genuinely sad, she might not have known the full story but she knew it wasn't gonna be a happy story when he told her. In an attempt to comfort him she tightened her arms and leg around him.

This motion caused her to accidentally dig her heel into the hole in his sweatshirt which happened to be the closing hole from his sword wound earlier. Black entered Jaune's vision as he tried to fight it back, but he simply didn't have the energy to keep walking and collapsed to the ground. Yang yelped in surprise as Jaune hit the ground. She rolled off of him, being careful to not touch her knee. She looked down to see Jaune face down on the ground. He was thankfully breathing. She needed to flip him over, but with her leg she didn't have good leverage.

Yang had no idea what happened, one minute Jaune was opening up to her, and another minute he was face down on the ground not responding to her calls. To her relief, Blake and Ruby were rushing back to where they were since Jaune was slowed down from carrying her. Ruby took charge immediately.

"What happened, Yang?" Yang shook her head, unsure as she answered.

"One minute I was comforting him, then the next he's unconscious! Now flip this boy over so we can take a look at him." The two girls answered by flipping him over and taking off his sweatshirt. They were surprised to see that he didn't have his shirt, but only for a moment until they saw it tied around his midsection. Upon further inspection they noticed that it had dried blood on the outside, and after untying the shirt they saw that there was fresh blood beginning to pour out. It was Ruby who broke the silence that had formed while they inspected the boy.

"Shit! Reach into his pocket, Yang and grab his scroll see what his aura's at! Blake put pressure on his wound to try and stop the bleeding." Both girls complied quickly as Yang fished his scroll out of his pocket and opened it. The password had thankfully been taken off due to a mission rule and she was immediately greeted with red. His aura was at 20% and seemed locked there. His body probably couldn't generate more aura because of his injury. Ruby, called out to them.

"Alright, Jaune's overexerted himself so let's make our way to the cave Blake and I saw up ahead before Jauney keeled over. I'll help you Yang. Blake can you drag Jaune over there it shouldn't be too hard since we're close." Blake sighed internally, cursing at Jaune as she hooked her arms under his shoulders and began pulling him towards their destination. When did he get so heavy? Must be this surprising amount of muscle I can feel.

After about a minute of pulling Blake made it to the cave, and pulled the boy in. The cave wasn't very big. In fact it was about a deep and wide as Jaune was tall. Blake laid the boy down across the far wall and went over to the two sisters that had already entered the cave. Blake looked outside as she came over and saw grey skies overhead. She knew they had no time to waste so she went to talk to Ruby.

"We need firewood before it rains, or else it'll be one cold night." Without waiting for a response from the redhead, Blake left the cave and began collecting firewood. Ruby darted out and soon sound of metal swinging was heard as the two girls went to work on the forest around them.

Yang, left stranded, decided to drag herself over to her unconscious blonde companion who was snoring pretty loud in the back of the cave. With a little bit of effort she reached the boy, who was still shirtless and alarmingly pale. Then again, when would he have time to work in a tan at beacon?

The brawler shook her head, focusing on the boy in front of her and not something as random as why Jaune wasn't tan. Said pale boy was shivering from the wind coming in through the cave entrance. Why are all boys cute when they're asleep? Yang wondered as she got closer to the shaking boy. She now was over his torso and examining the claw marks that had scarred over and the shirt Jaune used to stop the bleeding in the hole from the sword.

She was now sitting down, legs to her side and looking over the sleeping boy in front of her. He was letting out loud snores while she looked over his form. His left pec had a jagged scar across it that seemed like it was from glass. She found it odd not because of look, but just the fact that it was there since aura can make scars disappear. Jaune must've wanted the old scars to stay, she had no idea why but that would be the only way for him to have an old scar. Looking up, she saw a small circular scar right on his collarbone; it was white and faded but still noticeable.

With Jaune still shivering, Yang leaned back onto his bare chest and began flaring her semblance to create heat. While it used some aura it wasn't enough to cause her worry as she used her semblance. It was at this point the rain started to pour down, the calming noise put Yang into a relaxed stupor which wasn't broken until a wet Ruby came dashing into the cave, wood in hand and followed shortly by Blake who was also soaked. Thankfully they had managed to keep some logs dry by shielding them from the rain. Quickly, they set the logs down and before Yang could say a word they had a fire going and were warming up from the bone chilling rain.

The girls looked over towards Yang casually leaning against the shirtless Jaune. Blake smirked.

"Have fun with your boyfriend, Vomit Boy?" Yang laughed before responding with a bit of sarcasm present in her voice.

"No, but I had fun with Jaune Arc who's actually pretty nice when you get to know him and you don't call him by names he doesn't like. Now come over here kitty cause I'm sure I'm warmer than that tiny fire." Both girls were at her side in an instant one on each arm trying to absorb the warmth emanating from the blonde girl. Yang hugged Ruby tight, glad she was holding up pretty well even in this high stress situation, plus she was just glad her baby sister was in good health.

They decided that Blake would take first watch since her head was hurting and she wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Before the others went to sleep, they warned Blake not to let Jaune take watch if he woke up. They all knew how that had gone over last time.

Despite the fact that it was one in the morning, Professor Ozpin sat at his desk wondering if it was going to be a long night. The reason for his late night was the two students in front of him, Miss Pyrrha Nikos and Miss Weiss Schnee, who were asking about tracking their scroll for the thousandth time since they returned from their mission. Not that he blamed them. He too was concerned for his missing students, but he chose not to show it outwardly. He focused on the girls, telling them the answer he had said since the start.

"Their scrolls seem either to be malfunctioning, or they were dragged into an area with no signal. There's nothing we can do besides send Bullheads to look for signs of them. I'm sorry girls." Weiss looked annoyed and it was obvious she was rather worried for her teammates.

"Surely with the Schnee Dust Companies wealth we can get them back by dawn." She stated, once again throwing her wealth around like it was nothing.

"If there was a way to get them, no matter the cost we would have them here Miss Schnee. I assure you. Plus we can't give up any military force with the chance of Cinder doing something bold while we're divided. I apologize." Ozpin said sincerely. He sighed and went for a sip out of his mug as he saw Miss Nikos began to talk. Tonight was definitely going to be a long night.

Sorry for the delay I had a real hard time typing this one, most of it was set up or later chapters and I just couldn't type. If you have any questions about the story don't be afraid to ask, I'll answer (if it doesn't spoil anything!).

As always don't be afraid to leave a review or favorite it really helps me write!

P.S my beta reader/editor was on vacation so this took a while, and with high school starting they won't be able help out, so if anyone would like to beta PM me I'll check out any past stories, since I'll only need one and message you? maybe I don't know how this stuff works honestly, see you next chapter!


	7. Alone

**Chapter 7: Alone**

Jaune Arc was 8 years old sitting on the floor of his mansion, currently he was pushing around his latest toy car. He smiled as the wheels squeaked and the tiny car smashed into the wall next to him with a satisfying thud. He heard footsteps in the hall behind him, so the boy turned around to see his mom walking towards him with a confused look on her face. Wondering what was wrong with mom Jaune asked.

"What's wrong mommy? His mom smiled and looked at her son before responding.

"Nothing honey, It's just that your daddy hasn't come home from work and he was due an hour ago." As if on cue the doorbell rang which confused the worried mother, Micheal would never ring the doorbell. Carefully she walked up to the door and opened it slowly, only to be greeted by a man in a black suit. Wasting no time the man started off with.

"Are you Mrs. Jennifer Arc?" Mrs. Arc nodded slowly putting the pieces together. "Well Mr.s Arc I regret to inform you that your husband Micheal has suffered a serious injury. Do not worry Ma'am he is alive, but he won't be able to become a hunter, I'm sorry." At this point Jennifer was in tears as she asked.

"Where is he?"

"The hospital Mrs. Arc, I'm sorry but you won't be able to visit until tomorrow, since he isn't stable yet." And with that the man left swiftly. Jennifer closed the door softly and broke into tears.

Jaune opened his eye's after that dream with a start, he looked around having no idea where he was, he could see he was in a cave with Blake curled up and asleep next to him, Ruby was draped over his legs asleep too. Yang had her head resting on his stomach which made him blush, eyes open and looking at him with her hand on his shoulder. He made eye contact with the girl who only responded with a raised eyebrow, to which Jaune replied with a shrug.

"Bad dream… I've had worse though so don't worry." The blonde brawler moved on seeing that Jaune didn't want to talk about this one, and the two began talking about other things, family, hometowns, friends, and whatever else came to mind. Despite the circumstances they were having a good time, Yang was laughing at Jaune as he told a story about how he tried to be bold and ask a girl out at 1am by knocking on her front door. Long story short Jaune ended up with a handprint across his cheek and no for an answer. After she was done laughing however she became serious and blurted out.

"I'm sorry Jaune." Now it was Jaune's turn to be confused as he gave her a look that said 'go on' So she continued. "I'm sorry for when I punched you, I never actually apologized, and I'm sorry for hurting you yesterday. I feel like that's all I've done to you on this mission I'm so sorry." The knight looked down at Yang with a blank stare before responding.

"I forgive you Yang, yesterday was my fault anyway since I didn't tell you guys about my injury. Plus I view it as karma for not being able to pull you guy up on the Bullhead, Yatsuhashi could've lifted you three up."

Yang was about to slap or strangle Jaune she wasn't sure yet, he was honestly trying to blame himself for them being stranded and stabbed through the gut with a sword. To her surprise however, she laughed taking the blonde boy by surprise.

"Jaune you're such a dork oh my god! You can't honestly be blaming yourself for this happening, If anyone blame the fuckers that attacked us and hurt Ruby. Also don't compare yourself to Yatsu, you're not him and never will be, you're Jaune Arc, brave, courageous, and sometimes do dumb things like almost die for someone you barely know." Now it was Jaune's turn to chuckle and respond.

"You should smile more Yang, your smile's very pretty." At this point Yang clapped her hands together waking up her teammates up and scooted over to the fire to make sure it's out.

Jaune mentally face palmed he had been a little too confident and scared Yang away, not that she would ever like him, he just hoped she would consider him a friend, which was all he could really ask for. He looked at Ruby who sat up rubbing her neck as she did so, Jaune decided to have some fun at the girl's expense to try and raise morale.

"I don't think legs make the best pillows eh Ruby?" She replied by sticking her tongue out at him and lightly punching his leg. "I'm hurt Ruby, can't you be a little nicer to your pillow." Ruby elected not to respond this time and began to stand up. Jaune just laughed and looked over towards Blake who must've been really tired since all the commotion hadn't woke her up. The knight poked her, not getting a response he stepped it up and shook her, when she didn't respond he swore loudly.

"Fuck, goddammit, can't we have everyone conscious for one hour, I knew she had a concussion I should've been awake to stop her from going to bed till her aura healed her." He turned to the sisters next to him who look very confused and answered their silent question with. "She told me her head hurt when we woke up and now she's gonna be unconscious until her aura's healed her concussion." Ruby walked over to Jaune and patted his shoulder before comforting him with.

"Jaune nobody's to blame here, we're all worn down from this mission. Lets just go look for water, we need to assume we won't be rescued soon and plan accordingly." Jaune just nodded and began to scoop up Blake much to Yang's disapproval. Jaune noticed this and paused what he was doing and looked at the blonde before saying.

" Don't worry Yang I'm well rested so I won't overwork myself, plus I'm sort of the only one that can carry her so we don't leave her to the wolves. Since Ruby will be helping you walk, because I assume you can put a little pressure on it right?" Yang just nodded at the boy who responded with."Ok, now that we are all at an agreement lets go get us something to drink." When he finished he quickly put his sweatshirt on and finished picking Blake up, then walked out of the cave with the girls. After about a half hour of walking Ruby asked Jaune.

"Where exactly are we heading Jaune?" To which Jaune replied simply with.

"Downhill, they taught us that on the first day of survival class, or were you sleeping Ruby?" Ruby just laughed letting out a 'probably' as she did so.

They continued downhill slowly, since Ruby was the only one in good health she was letting Yang use her as support as she limped along. Letting out quiet grunts whenever she put too much pressure on her knee or stumbled when her leg almost gave out on her. Ruby was concerned for her friends, if she was honest with herself they were in really bad shape, she just really hoped rescue came before they came across anything big in the forest.

Trying to ignore her last thought she focused on the blonde boy next to her carrying their unconscious teammate. He had sweat running down his face from carrying her, but he didn't complain he just marched on bearing the burden of Blake silently even though he was clearly exhausted. Even though he wasn't limping Ruby knew he was the worst off of the group, he'd been through hell on this mission and it only got worse when they fell out of he Bullhead. It was at that point she realized just how strong the blonde knight was, maybe not on the physical side yet, but mentally. Jaune was a master tactician they knew that, but how he puts everyone else's feelings before his was crazy in her eyes, and he did so without a complaint. She thought back to when Weiss rejected him on multiple occasions he just took it in stride and even went as far as to set her up with Neptune. Realizing that he wouldn't stop moving until his body shut down she called out.

"Alright, we're taking a break right now, let's sit down." Jaune looked like he was about to object, but he silently gave in and sat down relishing the rest his body got.

After about five minutes Ruby saw Jaune stand up and stretch out, then he said.

"Alright that rest was nice, but we should really find water, then we can rest for at least one day." This time when Jaune picked up Blake he used the fireman's carry which told Ruby that he was getting tired. She really hoped that they could find water before Jaune or Yang gave out.

Thankfully it didn't take too long for Blake to wake up releasing Jaune from the burden of carrying her. She gave him a quick thanks and apologized for being dead weight. To which Jaune told her it wasn't her fault and not to worry about it. Soon thereafter they reached a lake similar to the one they slept by earlier in the mission except this one was much smaller, about the size of a Nevermore and seemed to have fish coming out of the river on the opposite side of the lake.

Without a word all 4 people rushed over and began drinking water silently until their thrust that had been accumulating over the past day and a half was quenched. With everyone satisfied Ruby felt her stomach rumble and said.

"Now that we have this water source we should stay here today and try to get some fish so we can also have full bellies." Everyone nodded and Jaune called out.

"Alright Blake and I will go get some fish as they go down the river, Ruby you get us some firewood so we can cook them. And Yang just chill out and let that leg heal." Not hearing any complaints Jaune set off toward the river with Blake.

They walked in silence until they got close to the river, at that point Blake nudged Jaune and asked.

"How're you holding up Jaune?" Jaune considered telling everything to Blake for a split second. He thought about his side that felt like it was on fire, or that his left shoulder was hurting again and it felt like his bones were grinding against each other every time he moved his arm, but in the end he responded with.

"Don't worry about me Blake, how's your head doin?" Blake cursed the blonde boy, he was an expert at deflecting conversation away from himself. She responded quickly with an 'I'm fine' and decided to ask him again later.

Shortly thereafter they reached the base of the river, and Jaune left Blake and went farther away from the lake so he could get the fish Blake missed. So far though after 5 minutes Blake had gotten 3 while Jaune was still empty handed. As he watched the blood from the fish flow down the river he felt it was unfair Blake's weapon gave her the advantage in this situation, he made a mental note to get an upgrade of some sort when they got back. While he was thinking he noticed the water to his right get darker, the hair on the back of his head stood up and instinctively he rolled to the right and not a second too soon because there was the head of a King Taijitu where he just was that had splashed fish blood all over him. He didn't wait a second though because where one was, the other was never far behind, so Jaune grabbed his shield and ran towards Blake who noticed what had just went down and saw that there were more coming down from the trees behind them.

"Let's get the fuck out of here Blake!" Jaune yelled as he ran with her back to the others.

Ruby stood atop the tallest tree she could find holding her scroll over her head hoping that she could get a signal, her wish came true when she saw one bar appear. She hurriedly hit the emergency button tapped Ozpin's name and put it up to her ear. It hadn't even rang once when she heard Professor Ozpin's voice as he said.

"Thank god you're ok miss Rose, we're sending a Bullhead right now to get you and your group are you guys alive?"

Ruby's jaw was open, she was looking towards the river, but trees made it so she couldn't see her friends. That is until they burst from the treeline followed by at least 6 pairs of King Taijitu. She heard Ozpin start saying something else but she interrupted him with.

"Sir send some students with that Bullhead, we're all alive right now but Jaune and Blake seem to have stumbled upon a nest of King Taijitu, and we are in no condition to fight these, goodbye Professor." She hung up and started climbing down as fast as she could hoping that they could get through this.

Jaune was scared shitless, he heard the giant snakes behind him gaining on them, their heavy bodies slithering across the grass behind him, knowing that they weren't slowing down terrified him. Adrenaline was the only thing that kept his legs pumping while his body threatened to quit on him. They ran to the two girls, Yang leaning against a tree for support as they stood in a circle, they knew they needed to act fast the Grimm were about 20 seconds away and there were a lot of them. Ruby quickly told the two that had just arrived.

"I made contact with Ozpin, he's sending a Bullhead to get us." Jaune nodded then took lead and said.

"Alright girls, let's have Yang propped up against this tree firing supportive rounds when she can. We'll just defend around this tree until we get the support from Beacon Ozpin promised us. I just want you 3 to know that no matter what happens I'm glad I had the honor of becoming friends with you guys and everyone at Beacon." With that Jaune turned towards the beasts who were now upon them and willed his semblance around him. Nothing happened, he wasn't too surprised, he was so exhausted he doubted he could take off the clothes he was wearing let alone summon weird ass aura armor to protect him. So he readied himself as the Grimm slithered towards him almost casually, like they knew that they weren't going to try to run.

Jaune gulped and prepared his shield to block, he wasn't exactly in the condition to dodge unless on reflex. Jaune saw the black head pull back before lunging forward, Jaune blocked the hit and chopped the head off while it was recovering from its failed attempt to hit the boy. The minor victory gave him some confidence, until the white head rammed into him knocking him across the grass dirtying his clothes and nearly rendered his sword arm useless. He knew he couldn't pity himself now, he stood up dropped his shield and put his sword into the now empty hand and waited for the white head's attack. He knew what it would do, open its giant mouth and go for the final blow, but Jaune was ready, dropping his sword and grabbing the Snake by the fangs just like how Ren told him he did during initiation. Both of his arms were burning, his right more than his left as he struggled to keep the creature from sinking it's fang's into him. Sweat was running down his face as his muscles throbbed, he knew that he couldn't last long like this, but he didn't know what to do. Suddenly he felt something hot fly under his right arm and then the King Taijitu pulled back and closed it's mouth, Jaune looked back at Yang who cocked her gauntlets back, nodded at Jaune and turned to help Blake who was having trouble with her third King Taijitu.

Jaune had a temporary break in action, which he used to grab his shield and carry it with his good arm, and put the sword in his other hand. Now though he had a dilemma, drop his shield and wield his sword, or drop his sword and focus on defending until rescue came. He chose to be defensive and dropped his sword, and not a second too soon as one pair of snakes approached him and hissed at him while they figured out how to kill the knight. Jaune on the other hand was trying to figure out how not to die via snake fangs before help came from Beacon. The Grimm decided seemed to notice that Jaune had no weapon and began ramming it's heads into Jaune's shield, slowly pushing him back as Jaune grunted after every hit feeling his left arm begin to falter as he slowly got closer to the tree Yang was standing in front of. Said girl had now begun shooting dust shells at the snakes as they continued their assault against Jaune, the knight waited for Yang to stagger the black head which was on his left, when she did he threw his shield like a frisbee into its open mouth lodging it in the back of it's mouth, a as it slid right and with all the energy he could muster he dropkicked it causing the shield to cut through the middle of the snake and kill it instantly leaving just the other head alive. What he failed to remember while making this plan though was that the badass maneuver left him defenseless and weaponless, so Jaune made a break for his sword since going for his shield meant certain death. Unfortunately for Jaune the snake had gone into a frenzy and by time Jaune had reached his sword the snake was already on top of him not even being slowed down by Yang's shotgun blasts as it charged.

Jaune knew this was the end of him he felt everything slow down as the giant maw of the snake opened and turned sideways ready to put two holes in his chest that he wouldn't survive from. He closed his eyes and waited for the jaws to clamp around him, but to his surprise it never came. He felt something hit him to the side and then he felt himself sliding across the ground, but not the fangs he was anticipating. When he looked up he saw something worse than death taking him, he saw Yang standing there two fangs poking out of her back as she looked at Jaune and said.

"Now we're even" Jaune instantly was on his feet and slicing off the beast's head with a cry as he removed Yang from the creature's mouth and set her gently down on the ground. Tears formed in Jaune's eyes as he applied pressure to Yang's wounds in a fruitless attempt to stop the bleeding, as he yelled.

"It was supposed to be me, not her not anyone else goddammit!" Jaune leaned over the girl who coughed up blood before she said quietly.

"I'm cold Jaune… I don't think I'm ready to die" Jaune shook his head before crying out and saying.

"Yang, don't say that, it's all my fault this happened you're getting out of here I promise!" Yang shook her head and coughed before whispering to Jaune.

"Take care of Rubes for me Jaune, I know you'll keep her safe." Even as the light started to leave her eyes Jaune couldn't accept that she was about to die, in fact he wouldn't accept that she was about to die. Then suddenly Jaune felt something inside him snap, and then dark energy seemed to begin pouring out of him. Jaune barely had enough time to call out to Ruby and say.

"Take Blake away from here don't turn back until you hear the Bullhead. Now!" Ruby didn't hesitate at all grabbing Blake and getting them the hell out of there trusting Jaune.

Before Jaune could do anything else a suit of armor appeared around him, but this time it was pitch black compared to the white armor he had summoned a couple days ago. But this time he knew that this side of him craved death, he could already feeling it urge him to kill anything that came near him. Which luckily was about 8 King Taijitu that had now circled him while that whole ordeal had gone down. He picked up his sword, which was also as black as his armor and he started smiling, he had no control over his smiling, in fact he had no control over his body which completely and utterly terrified him. It felt like a dream, but as he slashed at the snakes and felt their retaliation, he knew it wasn't a dream, he watched the stuff that dissolved from the dead Grimm go into Yang's wound. Mentally he smiled as he saw Yang's eyes flutter open albeit briefly it meant she was alive. _So the more I kill the more I heal her? How do I stop_ _oh fuck this is bad as dicks._

Jaune was interrupted from his thoughts by a bullhead hovering over his head as he finished off the last of the Grimm, at once he heard a loud voice over the speakers call out his name. He willed his body to respond to him but it wouldn't listen, he was concentrating so hard it hurt, his brain felt like it was turning to mush as he felt his body respond to him by waving then suddenly, the armor faded away, he gained control of his body, he threw up, then passed out

 **Fuckin hell guys I'm sorry and I hate to use the same excuse everyone gives, but school, starting up made it hard for me to get this done, hell it's 1:50 am at the time I'm finishing this, plus my editor/ beta reader can't help me anymore so I'm on my own, if this chapter is too shitty I'll edit it for you guys Thanks for reading!**

 **P.S leaving a review really helps motivate me, criticism is appreciated as long as it isn't too harsh Thanks!**


	8. Recovery

**Chapter 8: Recovery**

Jaune really hated that fucking beeping, he'd only been awake for a couple minutes, but it was already getting on his nerves. He laid there in a hospital gown, covered head to toe in cuts and bruises, plus both his arms still hurt like hell as he slowly sat up feeling his bones ache and pop as he did so. His only saving grace at the moment was that no one had noticed he was awake so he could just chill out in the silence.

*beep*

"Goddammit!" Annoyed, Jaune looked up and made eye contact with a smirking Professor Ozpin who had just walked in taking a sip from his mug.

"Sorry if I interrupted you young man, I just wanted to be the first person to talk to you when you woke up even though I did have to wait 4 days." Jaune almost thought the man was lying he thought he would be out for a day at most but 4 days! That was a long time to be unconscious. Then Jaune had no idea why Ozpin wanted to be here first but then again, Jaune didn't really understand the headmaster sometimes, so he went with it and nodded prompting Ozpin to start talking. "Your friends informed me of your first semblance, then you're healing semblance that saved Yang, I don't know how much you know about you're family history. But I regret to inform you that when an Arc has two semblances, it means that the next great war coming, and you know what happens to Arcs in great wars." Jaune nodded again as Ozpin finished "I didn't want to worry you Jaune, but I just wanted to make sure you knew what's coming for you and your friends. Well, I'll take my leave now mister Arc, good luck." Ozpin then promptly turned around and left without another word causing Jaune to shiver in response to what that meant. Before Jaune realized what was happening he was closing his eyes, he didn't know he was tired, but his rapidly fading consciousness told him otherwise, Jaune just hoped he saw his friends when he woke up.

Jaune awoke with a start, sweat had begun to run down his face, he was confused for an instant before he remembered the nightmare he had, it was the same nightmare of all his friends dying he had during the mission. Even though he knew it was a nightmare it still took Jaune a moment to clear it from his thoughts as he sat up and was now fully awake. He figured he should take a walk to clear his mind and slowly set his feet on the ground, still sitting on his hospital bed as he mentally prepared himself to stand up.

After a minute Jaune put his weight onto his legs and stood up, it went without saying, bad idea. Jaune ungracefully fell down on the chair that was pulled up next to his bed, knocking the chair, his IV bag that he didn't even realize was connected to him, and himself down in the process, feeling clothes land on his back that he assumed were his. Pyrrha probably put them there knowing Jaune would want to leave as soon as he woke up, she was right as usual Jaune thought as he slowly stood up using the bed for support. He pulled out the needle in his arm and then used the bed for support again as he changed into said clothes, which were his casual clothes, a hoodie and jeans, once he had those and his shoes on Jaune began his painful and slow walk out of the medical wing.

When he finally made it out of the medical wing, only falling down three times in the process, Jaune stood in the courtyard feeling the cool fall wind dancing across his face as he thought about where he would go from here. As he thought he had his question answered for him in the form of his stomach making ungodly rumbling noises telling him that he was in desperate need of food. With an objective in mind Jaune set out albeit slowly, Jaune wondered what time it was, hoping that the cafeteria would be empty so he could avoid talking to everybody about what happened during the mission. Fortune was not on Jaune's side though as his scroll (that Pyrrha had also thoughtfully put in the pocket of his jeans) said 12:00 lunchtime for Beacon students. That probably explained the lack of students in the courtyard as he approached the cafeteria, the closer he got the more he heard the normal ruckus that encompassed the Beacon cafeteria. Jaune found a group of first years that were entering the lunchroom and followed behind them so he could blend in more. Surprisingly the bandages around his head, and the limp he had gave him away before he could even finish getting food, as he felt the eyes on the back of his neck while he picked up his lunch tray and turned around. He almost wish he hadn't turned around since he was faced with almost a mob of students yelling questions at him.

"Jaune, is it true you killed 30 King Taijitu in three swings?" One random student asked to which Jaune answered.

"No that's just Nora making things up probably." After that though Jaune became flooded with questions, and he was not in the mood to answer questions, he just wanted to eat food and fill his stomach. Yet they kept asking things like "Did you die and come back" "are you and Yang dating?" "Is it true the girls did everything and lied so you could have some glory?" Jaune wasn't going to lie that last one hurt, but he just pushed through the group annoyed at how his luck had been so far today. His luck didn't get better though since his foot caught some freshman's foot and led to him dropping his lunch tray and falling on his right arm hard causing him to gasp surprised at how much his arm hurt as he hit the ground. Jaune tried to get up but was stopped when he felt someone grab him by the waist and easily bring him over to his normal table. Unsurprisingly when he turned around it was Nora who stood there smiling at Jaune without a care in the world.

"Thanks Nora, how're you doing pancake queen?." Jaune said with a smile on his face, to which Nora responded by hugging tightly and swinging Jaune around and saying.

"Jauney I'm fine, but we were so scared for you, please don't ever ever ever scare us like that again. We thought you were Grimm food there for a while." Jaune winced at how tight the hug was, but he didn't complain, he was just glad she was okay honestly.

"I'll try not to do something like that again Nora sorry." Jaune said sad that he knew he would most likely have to break his promise if he had the chance to save a friend again.

With that exchange done he turned towards the table Nora brought him to, it was of course his team and team RWBY sitting there waiting for their little interaction to stop. Almost immediately the others were around him, Pyrrha hugged him lightly and told him how worried everyone was for him even after he got to the medical bay. Ren patted him on the back gingerly and flashed him a rare Ren smile that took Jaune by surprise, the knight felt a tiny hand grab his left arm and he whirled around to see the Weiss looking at him impatiently as she quickly blurted out.

"Thanks for saving my teammates, I know I can be harsh sometimes, but I just wanted to say thank you for staying with them when you guys fell out of the ship, they most likely would have died if you hadn't gone with them," Weiss raised her hand before she continued and finished with "don't even say it's not true just accept my thanks Jaune."

Jaune knew she was exaggerating when she said that, but he knew she wouldn't take no for an answer so he just nodded and looked at the remaining three girls who gave him a smile and the 'We'll talk later look'. The blonde knight gave a weak smile before he said.

"Alright guys I'm glad you were worried about me and stuff. But can we talk about it at another time or something I'm honestly starving and I need to go back into the lunch line." Pyrrha gestured for him to sit down and silently made off towards the lunch line.

Pyrrha came back with lunch for him, Jaune thanked her quickly before gorging on the delicious chicken nuggets she had got for him, he would've laughed out loud had his mouth not been full when he saw his friends faces. They could give him a break, he hadn't had a proper meal in about a week, so naturally he ate like an animal in order to sate his appetite. Quickly after eating he felt a food coma coming on, or was it just natural fatigue from the mission? What Jaune did know however was that he was tired as hell and just wanted to be in his own bed, so he excused himself from the lunch table surprising his friends then stumbling out of the cafeteria without looking back.

He reached the dorm building, walked up the stairs, and started down the hallway towards his room glad to finally be back he livened up a little as he started limping faster ready for the comfiness of his bed. Unfortunately the shadow in front of his room didn't want him to reach the sweet confines of his bed, said shadow was Cardin, someone who Jaune did not want to see anywhere let alone one on one in a hallway. Jaune sighed, what was it gonna be this time physical or mental bullying Jaune couldn't wait. Cardin looked up at Jaune with a smile on his face as he said.

"Funny seeing you here Arc, I mean I knew you would be here but it's still funny." Jaune scowled before he responded.

"What do you want Cardin?" Cardin gave a big smile and laughed saying.

"Hey buddy I just wanted to ask you a simple question. Which one of the girls are you fucking?" Jaune was at a loss of words he hadn't thought Cardin could be ask a question more boneheaded, ridiculous question.

"Shut the fuck up Cardin you know damn well I'm not doing that you pervert! What do you want?" Jaune said letting his annoyance show as he spat those words towards Cardin. Said bully who was leaning against the door when Jaune said that stood to his full height nearly a head taller than the knight who didn't back down an inch as he squared up trying to not look weak even though his injured body would say otherwise. Cardin just smiled before he responded with.

"Just confirming my suspicions Jauney boy, since you aren't _fooling around with them_ , I was wondering if you care if I fooled around with that blonde bitch Yang," Jaune was way past his limit of tolerance at this point, he tried to push through Cardin but it was unsuccessful as he just held his ground and laughed at Jaune before continuing. "what Jaune? Have you not realized no one here likes you? Your friends put up with you because they have too not because they like you, that'd be ridiculous. You're the weakest person here, you couldn't even beat me last year, hell you barely scratched me." Jaune interrupted with balled fists.

"Shut up Cardin, you're just trying to get in my head." Cardin snickered and retorted quickly with.

"I can't make up that you're the laughing stock of this school and you know it! Plus you don't even have good looks or any redeeming qualities no one would ever think of loving you, you're **nothing Jaune and you know it** " The blonde shook his head weakly, he tried to say no but the words never escaped his lips, instead he felt his heart speed up, tears form around his eyes, and his hands started shaking. In a fit of rage and denial Jaune struck out nailing Cardin right in the gut, he just shook his head and said.

"Wrong move Jauney." Right as he finished he punched Jaune so hard in the face he went straight through team RWBY's door making the door seemingly explode into pieces as Cardin spit on Jaune before walking away seeing the consciousness leave his eyes as he lay there.

 **Alright guys we're back sorry for the wait I tend to overthink this stuff way too much and end up making writing harder than it needs to be. If you noticed Jaune was acting weird in the cafeteria, good! That's what I wanted, seriously who wakes up from being unconscious and is completely fine. Don't worry it's not like he has brain damage or anything, it's just fatigue from the mission he'll be back to normal in no time right? Or will he? You'll just have to read next chapter! Sorry if this is too short but I really wanted to get this out, and by the way I still don't have a beta reader or anything so if you notice like a gigantic pltothole or somehting PM me I'll be glad to fix it. That's all thanks for reading!**

 **P.S Don't forget to leave those reviews, I really appreciate them**

 **P.P.S I changed my name from the basic one I had when I first joined to my prefered username Bye!**


	9. Help

**Chapter 9: Help**

He felt the dirt path under him as he slapped the soles of his shoes against the ground going as fast as his legs allowed him to, his legs were trembling since he'd been running for about ten minutes at this point. Sweat had begun dripping off of his face it didn't help that today was hot about seventy if he remembered what the weatherman said on the news this morning. Not the time for getting distracted as he ran down the beaten path hoping to hide in the forest when he distanced himself enough. But fortune was not on the boy's side because his feet seemed to be his own undoing as he tripped sliding across the ground cutting up the arms he used to try and brace himself.

Now the boy had to turn and face had to face his attackers standing as tall as he could to look as scary as possible. It did almost the exact opposite of what he wanted making him look ridiculous, causing the group to come up to him laughing their asses off. The biggest one of the group, he was pretty sure his name was Alexander but he didn't care one bit about his name.

"What do you want?" He said with a squeak eliciting more laughter from the boys who just walked closer.

"Not much Jauney boy, just wanted to make sure I understood what I heard earlier. 'Emily's pretty cute, I wonder if she'd go out with me?' The boy mocked in a girly voice.

"What's wrong with that Alex?" Instead of asking Alex turned to a smaller kid to his left and whispered into his ear, said kid looked up nervously at Jaune before nodding his head at the bigger kid. The smaller one made his way slowly towards Jaune shaking his head as he got closer not saying a word letting the big guy talk for him.

"So you like faune eh? Maybe that shit passes in elementary school, but we're in seventh grade Jaune that kinda stuff don't fly here. Johnny, get him" Johnny must've been the small kid because as soon as Alexander said that the small kid continued moving from where he stopped when the big guys started talking. Just as he reached Jaune he turned around and said hesitantly.

"Guys why don't we just leave it here, I'm sure he won't ever say something like that-"

"No, you don't understand Johnny if we let him go people are gonna think it's ok to like faunus at our school, and we can't have that can we?" The small boy was sweating now, he just nodded letting the older boy continue. "Now since I know you won't do it I'll do it myself, so get out of my fucking way before I make you join him." Johnny looked at Jaune with raised eyebrows, clearly wondering if it was worth it to fight the bully. Jaune just shook his head he didn't want to drag anyone else into this no matter how unfair it was that he was thrust into this situation.

Alexander cracked his knuckles as he reached Jaune easily a head taller than the small blonde boy who was now cowering in fear waiting for the inevitable. He didn't understand why he was being persecuted for thinking a Faunus was cute, his whole family supported Faunus so why couldn't these guys? He was jarred from his thoughts though when he felt a meaty fist connect with the right side of his face. With a resounding crack he fell to the ground, tears already running down his face as the second hit nailed him in the ribs while he laid in the dirt crying.

"What Jauney? Wanna go home and cry to mommy? Maybe next time you won't think about liking Faunus because they're all disgusting creatures who shouldn't be liked." Alexander spat out at The defenseless Jaune. Alexander heard a grunt from Jaune who had his hands over his head. "What do you have to say now asshole!" Jaune Removed his hands from his head, stood up, and looked the bully in the eyes before he yelled.

"Go fuck yourself I'll like whoever I want Alexander it doesn't matter what you say you racist asshole!" Even as he felt the knuckles make contact with his temple, he felt glad that he stood up for himself, and even gave a small smile before the black engulfed his vision and he lost consciousness.

Jaune woke up with a groan and a sense of deja vu, he had no idea how long he was out or where he was. He seemed to always end up like this, just one time he wanted to wake up knowing exactly where he was and what was happening, but he seemed not to have the luck for that to happen. Annoyed at himself mostly he sat up and opened his eyes, only to meet forehead with wood as he banged his head hard on something above him. He swore loudly and grabbed his head in pain from both the support of the bed above him, and the pain he just remembered when Cardin punched the shit out of him. Wait? Why was he under a bed?

Jaune turned to the side and saw a bunk bed with one tied to the ceiling, he was definitely in team RWBY's room and in Blake's bed. His theory was further confirmed when Yang leaned over the edge of the bed with a grin on her face as she said.

"The grace of a swan there sleeping beauty, how was your nap?" Jaune smirked at this despite the circumstances and replied jokingly with.

"Never been better Yang, thanks for asking… So, how did you find me? because the clock on the wall says that you guys should still be eating lunch" Jaune watched Yang as she scratched the back of her neck, a social tick that he thought he was the only one to have in their group of friends. Then the blonde brawler said sheepishly.

"I sorta followed you back after you left, because when you left you didn't look like you were in that good of shape you seemed almost delirious. So like five minutes after you left I decided to follow you to make sure you were okay. When I got here you were laying on the ground with our door in pieces, with blood coming out of your mouth Jaune. What happened?" Jaune's face went Grim, he really didn't want to tell her, but now with an aching stomach and a throbbing in his head he swallowed his pride and answered with.

"Cardin cornered me, said some stuff that hit deep, I wasn't thinking straight, I was still groggy and sore from the mission. So I punched him in the gut, and then he punched me right through the fucking door, and here I am as useless as ever." Yang jumped down from the top bunk with red eyes as she looked at Jaune clearly enraged.

"That asshole did what! I'm going to break his legs, let him heal then break his legs another goddamn time! Then I'll let Nora have him!" Yang turned around ready to leave and spouting obscenities. Now it was Jaune's turn to stand up, but instead of getting angry he limped over to Yang and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, Jaune could feel the heat already building up as her skin was hot to the touch. He took a deep breath to calm himself before he attempted to talk down the raging inferno before he used his most soothing voice and said.

"A-A-Alright Yang I-I-I know you're angry b-but I'm gonna have to ask you to calm down there. I'll handle Cardin on my own once I've healed Yang, I know I'm not the best fighter in the world… but I've gotten so much better lately thanks to Pyrrha of course. I know you guys don't believe in me too much, plus I really don't want you getting in trouble." the effect was immediate as the fire dissipated, the red in her eyes changed to the normal lilac, and her shoulders dropped as she came to her senses. She looked at Jaune who looked a little scared at the fiery blonde in front of him. She dropped her head and mumbled something under her breath that Jaune didn't quite catch, Jaune asked the blonde.

"What'd you say Yang?" Yang looked up before saying louder.

"I always do this, I keep getting carried away and too overprotective and scaring you, I don't know what your home life was like, but I feel terrible about doing this to you constantly. I might as well be Cardin with how much I scare you." Now it was Jaune's turn to feel bad, even though it wasn't his fault per se it was simply in his makeup to put blame on himself no matter the circumstances. He cleared his throat before proceeding carefully unsure of how he was going to comfort the distressed blonde.

"Yang you know I'm not scared of you, in fact I enjoy your company a lot, we're just both stressed out from the mission and I'm not exactly great at using words to get points across. What I do want you to know is that the reason I seem to flounder when you go all 'overprotective mode' is that I haven't really had anyone do that for me y'know?" Before Yang could comment Jaune added on. "I mean with my mom she was either working or cleaning the house there wasn't much time to pay attention to little ole' Jaune for my mom Jane. With my dad… let's just say he wasn't all there for most of my childhood. Sorry for not saying something earlier I just wasn't comfortable saying anything about it until now so… sorry." Yang looked up at Jaune and placed a hand on his shoulder warmly, then punched him in the shoulder with her other hand Jaune then yelped out.

"Hey what gives?" Yang smiled and replied.

"I can't believe you managed to turn that back onto yourself vomit boy," Jaune flinched but Yang didn't notice and continued "that takes some serious skill. However I won't accept that it's you're fault for me scaring you because you and I both know that's bullshit, but I promise that now that I know that sorta stuff makes you uncomfortable I'll try not to do that again." She sat down on the bed and patted next to her before she said.

"Now come over here so I can look over your injuries and talk to you about the mission." Jaune sat there awkwardly unsure of what to do or how to start the conversation about the mission. Thankfully Yang being the extrovert she was she grabbed Jaune's shoulders who was sitting right on the edge of the bed, and turned him so he could face her. Before Jaune could protest and tell her he was fine she shushed him and looked over his face making sure he didn't have any bleeding she hadn't seen before.

Once she finished, she turned to Jaune and said bluntly.

"Alright now take off your shirt" Jaune was a stuttering mess to say the least, with a blush as red as the blood on the floor. Yang mentally kicked herself for her bluntness before explaining. "While you talk about the mission I want to check out your injuries from the mission." Jaune sighed knowing he couldn't get out of it and slowly took off his hoodie first, then his shirt, and laid down and put his head on the Blake's pillow while Yang sat up against the headboard next to Jaune waiting patiently for him to start. She didn't have to wait long as the blonde began, skipping to the part where Cinder's team came and he explained why his sword was so important.

"Well you see Crocea Mors was crafted from the finest steel about 200 years ago and was passed down from Arc to Arc, and up until 80 years ago it was just a sword. Then the great war came and my grandfather used it to 'turn the tides of war' when the side for individualism was at it's lowest, and turned the war around in what's known as the 'battle of the Yellow Sun'. Then my father never had the chance to use it in any large war because he refused to go against the faunus in the faunus rights rebellion, so he gave it to me- err… I mean when I stole it from him when I ran away from home to come here and become a hunter. Now the reason why the forces of evil want such an influential weapon out of the equation is because they feel like getting rid of Crocea Mors will give them the edge they need in an upcoming war. When or what the war will be over is still unknown but what happened confirms my family's suspicions they had before I left that a war is brewing in Vale." Jaune paused taking a breath and made eye contact with Yang before he told her his side of the fight with Cinder and the others, including the part where that faunus' sword went through him, he was about to continue when Yang interrupted him.

"Adam Taurus… his name is Adam Taurus, he was Blake's partner when she was a terrorist for the White Fang"

"..." Jaune knew Blake was a terrorist, the other team had come out with that knowledge at some point during the end of last year, but what hadn't come out was the fact that she was a high up terrorist in the White Fang of all groups. Jaune shrugged it off, not much he could respond to that with so he just moved on.

"So umm...yea good to know hopefully she'll want to inform us of his weaknesses and strengths for future battles. Anyways, that Adam guy shot his fucking sword right into me, but that might of actually helped us not die in that fight because I had his sword for a majority of the fight. But man did that hurt like a bitch because I didn't have the luxury of getting knocked out to avoid experiencing the pain like I did with that Ursa swipe." Jaune turned onto his side and pointed to the spot where there was two thin scars that formed an X. Seeing the confused look on Yang's face Jaune answered her silent question with little chuckle. "Well I was in a little bit of a rush and didn't really take the time to pull the sword out right and I guess I turned it when I pulled it out." Jaune gave a sad smile before finishing with. "Yea, I guess that's one downside to being a Huntsman, you get these scars that make me look worse than I already do." Jaune immediately covered his mouth, that comment was not supposed to be said out loud. He had went basically his whole life without opening up to anyone about his life, why was he opening up to this blonde girl next to him? It was because she actually cared about what he had to say. Pyrrha would listen to him, but honestly she just wanted someone to love her, and Jaune was the most convenient for her so she would listen, but she wouldn't care.

Jaune knew Yang cared and if he told her about what happened to him growing up, that she would understand and be there for him, but Jaune was scared and did like he always did. He stood up without even grabbing his shirt, burst out the door, and ran just like always.

 **And that's that folks (what? I didn't end a chapter with someone asleep or unconscious), sorry it took so long, school mixed with some massive writer's block made it so hard to write. I hope that I'll be able to get these chapters up to my standards soon, again sorry for the wait.**

 **P.S don't forget to leave a review seeing the reviews really give me incentive to write more.**

 **P.P.S RWBY volume 3 looks soooo good I might incorporate things from the new volume into this story.**


	10. Lost

**Chapter 10: Lost**

Even as Jaune sprinted away he was already beating himself up, he hated himself for running away like that but he didn't know how else to respond. _Just like usual Jaune, you're weak, you can't even have an honest talk with someone without just running away like usual._ The blonde tore outside the dorm into the chilly air and ran for another minute before stopping and laying down on his stomach on top of a bench. His head was throbbing and the world was spinning, everything hurt and he closed his eyes feeling tears threaten to fall down, hoping to pass out so he would feel better when he woke up. But someone had other plans for him and he felt a light tap on his head, Jaune looked up and saw the ever creepy Professor Ozpin looking down on him. Ozpin gestured for Jaune to sit up and he did so the man could take his seat next to the hurting boy. Ozpin turned to the boy after a minute of silence and said.

"Do you remember what I told you a couple days ago Jaune?" Jaune almost scoffed before answering with.

"You mean when you told me a bunch of shit I already know?" Ozpin sighed before he gave his response.

"Yes Jaune… I presume that your father told you this information even though he's not really supposed to." Jaune was confused now so he asked Ozpin.

"Why wouldn't he tell me I'm probably going to die in a great war?" Ozpin opened his mouth and closed it deciding to choose his words carefully when he responded.

"Well mister Arc, I think you can agree that telling someone that they're going to die is not normally a good idea. Because people, especially kids tend to steer away from something they know will probably kill them. I would assume that if you knew you were going to die being a hunter you would become a farmer or something of the sort. If you can understand where I'm coming from Jaune." The blonde laughed and looked at Ozpin with a sideways glance.

"My dad stopped caring about any of that bull after his injury, the day after his injury he told me everything the whole nine yards 'Jaune you're going to die on the battlefield if you become a hunter wielding Crocea Mors' I just sort of accepted that and started my training unbeknownst to my dad. Then the first chance I got I booked it out of there and made it here." Ozpin was about to respond, but Jaune smiled and beat him to it. "If you'll excuse me I'm going out to Vale" With that Jaune was gone off towards the bullhead causing Ozpin to shake his head and sip his coffee deep in thought.

Yang was confused as she made her way to the training room. Why did the knight have to just run away from her like that, didn't he see she wanted to help him with whatever was ailing him. Her knee jerk reaction was to chase after the knight, but she decided to just fill in her teammates and friends on everything that happened and give Jaune some space, and told them not to 'break Cardin's legs' because Jaune would handle it himself.

Even as she demolished the training boys that were set on easy, she couldn't stop worrying about the blonde who hasn't come back yet. It had been around three hours since he ran away with no signs of him returning. She ended that wave of bots with a mean left hook, when she went to start the next round though she heard someone yell her name from across the training room. Turning around she saw the red headed goddess Pyrrha running to her waving her scroll in the air. The girl quickly reached her, out of breath she seemingly whispered.

"Jaune… He sent me a text." Instead of reading it Pyrrha showed Yang and it read.

 _Jaune: Hey Pyr donut wrry bout me I went 2 the bar 2 get wasted Do NoT gEt me ILL be finee._

Yang was instantly worried, Jaune was probably drunk out of his mind, she had no idea what kind of drunk he was, but she assumed he was probably a sad drunk. She didn't know how often Jaune drank so she was worried he would just be blackout drunk and taken advantage of. Yang turned to Pyrrha and said.

"Alright let's go into town and just check out most of the bars, there's only so many bars in Vale right? Plus, he probably didn't go far into town just to get wasted. Bring whoever's available, meet me at the bullhead in twenty minutes, and we'll head into town"

Yang, Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha all stood inside the bullhead as it pulled into Vale. Once the doors opened they all split into different directions, they had decided that in order to find Jaune quicker they would split up and search the closest bars from where they landed. Yang knew exactly where she was going to look first, but she had to call in Bumblebee before she did anything. Hitting a few buttons on her scroll and a few moments later her bike was at her side ready to go.

Feeling the wind in her hair she sped towards Juniors bar, worst case scenario the swordsman wasn't there then she could ask Junior if he had seen Jaune at all. Walking in she saw him immediately which was good, but the bad part was that he was in no way a sad drunk. He was stood atop a bar stool and he seemed to be trying to crush at least eight beer cans with his chest. She looked at the ground around him which was littered with what she presumed were also his beer cans. _Damn, Jaune can handle his alcohol_. Even people who weren't underage like Jaune wouldn't be conscious with how much alcohol he had consumed. Yet Jaune was still chugging without a care in the world as he finished another can of beer and failed to crush any of the cans when he jumped down with arms spread. Landing with a resounding thump Jaune stood up and raised his thumbs up and opened up another can.

She decided to take a seat a few seats past Jaune so she could ask about what happened to him. Sitting down she ordered a strawberry sunrise and waved down Junior. He was massaging his temples as he made his way to her and said.

"Hey blondie, if you could not trash my club right now, this other blondie is running me dry and wrecking my club right now, with less shotgun gauntlets of course. So why are you here?" Yang looked at the large man and answered.

"I was looking for a friend who said he went into town to get wasted, guess i didn't have to look far. Now before I grab him, I just wanna know how he got to this point." Junior sighed. He looked towards Jaune and told Yang.

"When he first got here he looked really bummed out, which is probably why he came here. Then he hit this point of no return basically a Jekyll and Hyde where he started just doing a bunch of crazy shit, like shots and chugging contests, and he's been like this for about and hour." Yang thanked Junior and paid for her drink before making her way towards Jaune. The knight had just finished another beer and threw it over his shoulder onto the ground. The brawler poked said knight on the shoulder and he turned around sluggishly then smiled three seconds later when he recognized her. Jaune laughed and grabbed her arms and pulled her over.

"Heey guys this is… Is my cute friend Yanng. Wait I was not supposed to talk those words she doesn't know. Shhhhhhhhhhh don't tell her guys." Yang was beet red, embarrassed that she had to hear this information like this, but it's partially Jaune's fault for getting wasted. All of his also drunk 'friends' cheered at her (with a few winks she ignored). While she would love to stay and chat, she really wanted to get Jaune back before he did something stupid. So Yang said.

"Alright well it's time for Jaune to head back home." She grabbed Jaune's arm and started pulling him away. When she turned around she was met with a stalwart chest. The unnamed man grabbed her ass and said.

"Hey hot stuff, what's cookin?" Before Yang could even cock her fist back the guy was already twenty feet past her and on the ground. She looked at Jaune who was shaking his wrist which seemed to be in pain, and responded with a simple 'whoops'. Jaune could pack a punch even in his drunken state, knowing that there might be some sort of revenge soon. So she got a strong grip on his collar and quickly pulled him out before he could do anything else. Once outside she threw Jaune on the bike in front of her, which made it pretty hard for her to see where she was going, but at least Jaune wasn't falling off the bike, even though she's pretty sure he fell asleep at some point. When she felt they were far enough away she pulled the bike over and half dragged half carried Jaune into a little diner.

After ordering waters a quick text to Pyrrha telling her that she was sobering him up, and Jaune going to the bathroom to vomit, Jaune was finally sober enough to have a real conversation with. Now they sat across from each other, both unsure of how to start the conversation that's bound to be awkwards. Yang being Yang still found a way though as she chuckled and said.

"You can really down em' Jaune y'know that?" Jaune let out a pained smile and scratched his neck before answering.

"Yea… I guess I can, and I'm pretty sure I punched someone and broke my thumb." Yang laughed and grabbed his hand. True to his word his thumb looked purple, she scolded him saying.

"You forgot rule number one of punching, always untuck your thumb, you need some serious hand-to-hand combat Jaune. I could always train you in that sort of stuff, because you can't always count on your sword always being there." Jaune nodded letting a small smile come out before he responded.

"Yea I know, and I've been thinking about getting some sort of gun but yea I'd love for you to train me Yang, thanks." Yang smiled running her hands through her hair, and asked Jaune.

"So Lover boy, two questions, how can you pay for all those drinks and also how can you hold your booze so well?" Jaune looked her in the eyes with a small glint in his eye and responded.

"Well I think I mentioned your name when I got there and drinks were half off. Which helped because I only have the money I've made doing under the table jobs, but I've been slowly siphoning some cash from my dad's bank account to help too." Jaune's eyes then glazed over and he continued. " As to why I can 'hold my booze so well' I've been able to do that since about sophomore year in highschool the year before I abandoned for Beacon. You see Yang, when your dad was a washed up Hunter who cares about faunus and you're the scraggly, wimpy, blonde son it's not exactly hard to find material to pick on the kid. So after I got beat up I would walk myself home get the disappointed looks from my father and mother. Lock myself in my room and drink whatever booze I stole from old Mr. Jones next door. Then I would just cry myself to sleep most nights, which coincidentally is also most of the reason why I can take so much of a beating out there on the battlefield." Jaune broke eye contact and looked at the waitress who had just came over and ordered a beer to which Yang told the waitress to not get him one and that he's already going to have a killer hangover tomorrow.

Jaune pouted and let out a grunt of annoyance. Then Yang said.

"Holy shit Jaune, I'm so sorry for what's happened to you I wish I could have stopped all of that from happening. but instead all I can say is I hope you can move past this, and if you ever need someone to listen to you or a shoulder to cry on you know where to find me." Jaune nodded and let a smile appear. He then stood up and wrapped the brawler into a bear hug not noticing she couldn't breathe until he let go and she started wheezing. Jaune was about to apologize before Yang waved him off and said.

"Alright Arc, let's head home I'm super fucking tired." Jaune nodded and slowly walked out of the place waiting for Yang to hop on the bike so he could get on too. Yang hesitated before asking.

"You sure you're good enough to hold on?" The knight shrugged and gestured for her to get on and she added, "alright welp let's head back everyone's probably worried sick anyways." With that she hopped on and started the engine waiting for Jaune to sit down. Jaune sat down behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist cautiously as she started to accelerate. As their speed evened out, so did Jaune's breathing as he rested his head on Yang's shoulder and closed his eyes letting sleep take him away.

 **Sorry for the shorter chapters lately, but my subconscious need to perfect this story is really fucking me here, plus school isn't helping. However I'm hoping to have another chapter out by Thanksgiving or the week after since I'm going out of town and I write the most during car rides. Unfortunately swim team is starting so that will be pretty much the only time I have to write besides Christmas and Thanksgiving. Welp bye!**

 **P.S Don't be afraid to drop a review it really helps out!**

 **P.P.S We're about to break a hundred followers which is awesome since I thought no one would read this Thanks guys!**


	11. Headache

**Chapter 11: Headache**

Jaune woke up slowly, he cracked his eyes open only to be hit with a bright light and a splitting headache. He sat up slowly at first, then jumped out of bed rushed to the bathroom and threw up all over the toilet.

After he threw up again and cleaned the toilet off with a rag retching at the terrible smell. Then disrobed and got into the shower lazily. He turned the water on and started cleaning himself off. _I'm never going to drink again, this feels terrible. And I'm serious this time not like the last times where I quit for about a week._

Jaune finished up and put on his towel as he brushed his teeth and put on some deodorant. As he finished up he heard a knock at the door, he assumed it was someone sent to check on him so he slowly opened the door revealing an eager looking Ruby. Said girl looked at Jaune's exposed chest and turned around quickly blushing before she quickly yelled.

"Sorry Jaune I just wanted to ask you to come gun shopping since Yang told me you wanted a gun, but I'll come later when you're ready." Jaune laughed before he responded.

"Don't worry Ruby I'll just change real quick and I would love to shopping with you." He shut the door and grabbed some casual clothes which consisted of a hoodie and jeans, then he left the door and met Ruby who still hadn't turned around. He quietly opened the door and tasered Ruby with his fingers into her sides. To his delight and displeasure Ruby jumped up and screamed in fright. As he laughed and rubbed his head which was hurting because of that scream.

"Damn you Jaune Arc, revenge will be swift, and revenge will be sweet don't let your guard down because that will be when I strike." To Jaune just chuckled and ruffled her hair with his hands. To which she grumbled at him and started walking away not waiting for Jaune to catch up.

After he caught up and they reached the bullhead and got in, as they took off and he took his position next to the trash can. Ruby who was always filled with energy decided to start asking about why Jaune wanted a gun.

"Well Ruby, I hate the feeling of uselessness when the battle gets long range. Like sure I can give orders and stuff, but I can give orders and lay down suppressing fire, or even put damage on the enem. Instead of just standing on the battlefield like a big idiot waving my sword around while my friends shoot their guns. I know you don't really know that feeling but y'know I just don't want to be useless."

Ruby rubbed Jaune's back while he gave a couple dry heaves at the trash can but nothing was coming out. So Ruby decided to respond.

"You're right Jaune I don't know that feeling, but that's why I'm here now right? You don't want to feel useless and I don't want you to feel useless either. Everybody in our circle of friends is important to our missions, and if you know you are then you'll genuinely know how important you are."

Jaune smiled and let a comfortable silence envelop them as they let the rest of the flight remain in silence.

They reached the gun shop without a hitch and walked into the shop, well Jaune walking into the shop and Ruby sprinting into the shop. With the help of her semblance she started looking at every weapon in the shop. Jaune just decided to take a leisurely pace as he started perusing some pistols towards the back of the store. He started examining a couple since he knew that he wanted a pistol. The pistol wouldn't give him the most range, but he wasn't looking for a sniper, their group already had enough of those. But a pistol could help him assist anybody who gets overwhelmed with Grimm and he could kill some as he ran over to help. Or he could just kill some Grimm that someone didn't see that was looking to blindside them. Plus he felt that he would look really cool shooting one.

As he was inspecting the pistols Ruby appeared in front of him holding a Tommy gun with a giant grin spread across her face and she said.

" Here hold this. I thought you might like to look like a mob boss with this in your hands." The reaper paused putting it in his hands, Jaune didn't think it felt right in his hands. So before Ruby could continue he quickly spoke up.

"While it does look awesome Ruby, I just want a small handgun nothing flashy. I know that might be hard for little miss 'Scythe-Sniper' but I really only want a strong pistol that's got some decent range with the ability to have dust rounds put in. Sorry Ruby…" Said girls grin only left for a second then in a flash she was laughing and said.

"I should've remembered you have an appreciation for the classics. Come over here with me Jaune I think I have the perfect one for you." With that Ruby gestured for Jaune to follow him. Ruby was moving pretty fast, a speed that Jaune really did not want to go at the moment still feeling the lingering effects of his hangover. He willed himself to keep up for long enough that they reached the back corner of the store. It's location made it very easy to miss unless you knew it was there. Ruby pulled Jaune the rest of the way once they entered the room Jaune assumed had the weapon she was looking for. She looked at A confused Jaune who was wondering why they were now stopped in the middle of the room. Then Ruby asked.

"Okay Jaune can you close your eyes for me?" Jaune nodded and did as she asked, after about a minute Jaune felt someone pull out his hands then place a cold metallic object in them. Then a voice spoke up.

"Alright Jaune open up." He opened his eyes and saw a magnum in his hand. The gun had a revolving cylinder that could hold six cartridges, and was heavier than he thought it would be. He raised it up and aimed it towards the nearest wall, it felt really great in his hands. Ruby waved a hand and yelled at Jaune.

"Earth to Jaune! It's called the Smith and Wesson, it's been slightly modified to shoot dust rounds but besides that it's almost the same as the original model. Plus this thing hits like a truck and has a lot of kick in tow. You like it?" Jaune smiled and responded instantly.

"Hell yea Ruby, this thing is amazing I'm excited

for what you'll get me for Christmas if you're this good this at getting guns for me!" Ruby was ecstatic now and dragged Jaune to the firing range.

They loaded the normal rounds in and set Jaune up with earplugs and safety glasses. He readied the weapon and aimed at the target. He pulled the trigger and felt the gun kick up and nail him right in the nose. Jaune swore loudly and grabbed his aching head.

"Fuck me, guess I gotta hold onto that fucker a little tighter." Ruby could barely suppress her laughter as she saw that Jaune's shot had completely missed the target. Jaune was pretty sure he had broke his nose since it seemed to be tilted to the left side. So he put one of the magnum rounds in his mouth and bit down on it, then he grabbed his nose and set it back in place with a crunch. Which made Ruby cringe as Jaune spit out the unusable bullet that was dented now and commented.

"Saves a bunch of time not having to go to the infirmary right Ruby?" Ruby looked horrified and asked.

"Does doing that not hurt Jaune?" Jaune shook his head and retorted.

"That would be a no Ruby, on the contrary that hurt like a bitch. But I don't really mind because doing that has just become habit since I used to train on my own and had to do it then." Ruby then got a confused look on her face which made Jaune remember that he hadn't told his friends about the little amount of training he had done before Beacon. So he just started his story.

"Yea Ruby my dad sustained an injury to his left leg early in my childhood so I can't remember exactly when. But I do know that whatever the injury was he didn't want to tell me about. It ended his career as a hunter abruptly and turned him into a bitter man who did not want his son to become a hunter like him. So I stole his sword and shield Sophomore year and ran away from home with a month's supply of food, the clothes on my back, and the booze money I stole from my dad. For a while I just wandered around training with my sword on whatever I could hit. Then about a week in I ran into my first Grimm. It was a beowolf barely taller than I was but that didn't make it easy to kill it tore up my chest but I managed to kill it but not without letting a crescent shaped scar stay on my thigh as a mark of foolishness so I can learn from the experience. But, bleeding and half dead one of Ozpin's agents found me and gave me a choice. Get sent back home to my family forever, or go back home and fly out to beacon for the next school year and he would 'turn a blind eye to my underwhelming training' . And since I'm here right now you know what I picked." Ruby stood there mouth open and unable to speak for a moment flabbergasted by how little of the actual story Jaune had been telling them this whole time.

"Damn Jaune that's crazy, but at least ole ozzy let you stay and then you became friends with us as a result!" Ruby said with a large smile plastered on her face. Jaune gave her a sad laugh and responded with.

"That's the thing Ruby, it wasn't out of the kindness of Ozpin's heart that he let me come here. It was his knowledge of my family and our roles in wars. If I was anybody else I'd be sent back home with a pat on the back and a slap on the wrist. Honestly I might be dead if he nev-" Jaune tackled Ruby into the corner of the room as a cylindrical object rolled into the center of the room. Jaune let out a tiny breath of relief when it didn't explode only to see gas begin to pour out from the object that had stopped in the center of the room. Jaune grabbed Ruby again and stood up, then dove through the window only to feel like his neck was snapped as he noticed a large hand wrapped around his throat. Upon further inspection the hand belonged to an equally massive body with a White Fang mask on and a Chainsaw on his hip. In an act of defiance Jaune gasped out a final wisecrack.

"At least buy me dinner first guy come on" said guy looked down on Jaune and said.

"Sorry I'm not into blondes" and with that he knocked Jaune out and a recovering Ruby who didn't have time to speed away with her semblance. Admiring his work the Lieutenant grabbed his walkie talkie and called in to his superiors. "It all went according to plan my Queen"

Instantly a voice laced with static came through "Good job my Bishop now the knight to me"

 **There we go guys sorry to keep you waiting but swim team is really busting my balls and I also watched all of One Punch man during the week now I know I said I would be out after the break, but this time Christmas break is longer and I'll have roughly 12 hours of traveling time which hopefully (no promises sorry) the next chapter should be longer if all goes according to plan. Don't be afraid to leave a follow or favorite Thanks!**

 **P.S leaving reviews really help me because it's just me writing/editing these chapters so they're all I have to go off of on how I'm doing.**


	12. Pain

**Hey guys sorry for the delay swim team has destroyed me physically and mentally I'll try to get a little bit more writing in but no promises on when the next chapter will come out. I'm gonna try to not ever have a chapter as shitty and underwhelming as last chapter. yes it was supposed to be a filler but I got impatient and wanted to get something out but it ended up as garbage sorry.**

 **Chapter 12: Pain**

He noticed the darkness first as he opened his eyes. A dull throbbing laid in the back of his mind as he tried to remember where he was. He remembered getting gassed out of the gun shop then getting knocked out by a White Fang grunt, and now he was here.

But what exactly was 'here'? He tried to move his hands only to feel a cold metal stopping him, he got the same result with his legs starting to let panic seep into his thoughts. There must be a blindfold of some sort keeping him from seeing where he was. He tried to call out but was once again stopped by what tasted like a towel of some sorts wrapped around the back of his head so all he lost out was a muffled yell. His headache threw itself to the foreground of his thoughts which reminded him to focus some aura there in order to get rid of it.

A couple minutes later he heard the heavy thudding of boots coming towards him then his blindfold was yanked off his head along with his gag. He looked up and saw the Adam guy Blake had told him about that almost killed. And in front of him was Ruby currently sitting across from him bound in a similar fashion with a black eye fresh on her face. Jaune decided to start the conversation.

"Nice to see you again bud" The knight was rewarded with a well deserved slap to the face. Adam was already heated as he spat out.

"We are in no way buds you got it? You embarrassed me in front of the queen and then used my own weapon to injure one of my comrades." Adam turned around and punched Ruby. She recoiled back in pain and shock at the sudden action. Jaune spoke up.

"What the fuck dude why'd you do that?" Adam spun around and responded angrily.

"That's just a taste of what's to come if you don't give me your scroll password human." Jaune let out a single laugh before he answered the faunus.

"And why would you want that guy?" Adam's fists were clenched now as he gave Ruby another sucker punch across the left side of her face. Adam smiled and said.

"So we can kill your friends of course." He saw Jaune's confusion and added on. "We need to have you call one of your friends telling them that you've 'escaped the White Fang and need extraction from their base' on one of your scrolls to lure your friends in so we can kill them, plus we can get your beloved sword for our own from your locker." Jaune snorted now and said.

"Yea I'm sorry bud, but you're not getting jack from me I don't really feel like killing my friends." Now Adam grinned which scared Jaune.

"That's just what I wanted to hear Jaune, because I have a feeling red over there isn't as tight-lipped as you are." Ruby's eyes went wide in realization of what that meant. She shook her head vigorously as Adam got Jaune out of his chair and cut his shirt off leaving Jaune shivering. Then chained him up on the nearest wall that was an unsettling shade of white. After locking Jaune's arms and legs in tightly and giving him no room to move Adam left the room with Jaune suspended above the ground.

"Alright Ruby I know this is gonna be tough for you, but don't worry about me I can take a beating. However I'm going to need you to try and alert the others of our situation and of the trap set for them incase I can't get myself out of this. I think my plan will work though so just don't say anything even if I stop breathing… Just know I believe in you Ruby" Jaune said with a heavy heart as Adam walked in not giving Ruby a chance to respond. He carted in a tray with a lot of intimidating metal 'tools' on them. Adam parked the tray directly in front of Jaune and gestured to and said.

"I would like you to meet your new friends Jaune, since you're going to become very close with these guys in the next hour or so." Jaune looked at his new friends and said.

"Well hello guys, my names Jaune what are your names." Adam gave a frustrated sigh.

"You're not going to be smiling in a minute asshole so smile it up because I'm going to be the one smiling once you become acquainted with your new friends." Jaune decided it would be for the best if he stopped talking now that he had got Adam riled up. The knight saw Adam pull out what looked like a scalpel and readied his aura. Adam suddenly slammed the scalpel into Jaune's chest. Luckily Jaune was ready and it bounced right off his chest to Adam's surprise. So the faunus decided to change up his approach, instead of quick and strong he decided to bring it down to the scar from his sword and slowly start pushing it in.

Jaune was breaking a sweat, Adam has been trying to get his scalpel in for about five minutes to no avail. Now though Jaune wasn't sure it was worth it to spend much more aura on this since he only had a finite amount until he needed to rest and get more. He let it go on for another minute before he finically broke and the scalpel cut right into his scar. Ruby gasped and Jaune let out a grunt of pain as he felt Adam finesse the scalpel to as deep as the blade was then began working it around in a circle then finished by cutting a line on the end of the circle.

Jaune bit his tongue sensing that Adam would take great enjoyment in hearing him scream. Jaune really wanted to know more about the man below him who had been described by Blake as unfeeling and cold. Something must've really fucked this guy up because he was a mess emotionally, switching from stern and far away to crazy and masochistic. Jaune would have to ask Blake to give him a much more detailed description of the man who was smiling as he finished cutting an 'I' into Jaune's chest next to the 'D' that was already there. He had a sneaking suspicion of what Adam was engraving into his chest, but he couldn't focus enough over the fiery pain he felt to care about what the end word would be.

His face stung from the slap he had received since he must have passed out during the cutting. Looking down at the bloody floor and then the word 'DIckhead' engraved into his stomach. Plus it seemed that Adam had just left the tool in the bottom of his stomach as a mark of embarrassment But Jaune could worry about that later since Adam was waving a magnum in front of his face.

Jaune didn't understand why the White Fang wanted to kill a bunch of training hunters and huntress' so badly. The only logical reason Jaune could think of was the fact that the public outcry and grief the deaths would attract grimm to the city but he just couldn't know for sure without asking. So he asked the man simple.

"What does the White Fang gain from this anyway the killing of a bunch of teenagers?" Adam paused for a moment looking for the right way to phrase it.

"Two reasons. One, it shows the public how strong we are and that we are not to be taken lightly, so killing the future generations heros would do that quickly. And two, I get to capture Blake and convince her to come back to the White Fang and join me again." Adam said with a dark tone.

Now Jaune knew he could be oblivious and sometimes just plain dumb, but he could see a major flaw in the second part of the plan. So he decided to point it out to Adam despite his better judgement.

"Why would Blake join you after watching you kill her friends?" Adam answered immediately as if he had already thought of this.

"Because I'll be the one saving her from the wild portion of the White Fang and we'll start a new peaceful White Fang together." Jaune just rolled his eyes at the unstable faunus. Said Faunus loaded a round into the magnum that hadn't left his hand. Adam cleared his throat before starting again. "Well Mrs. Rose if you and your friend don't want to talk I'll just have to up the intensity of my persuasion tactics. Starting first with these electric dust rounds in his magnum." And without looking back Adam instantly fired one shot into Jaune's gut dotting the 'i' in 'dickhead' on his stomach. He didn't think about that long since the bullet tore right through his flesh and out the other side of him into the wall he was on. That wasn't the worst part though as he smelled his insides begin to cook before the pain set in and all of his muscles clenched in reaction to the electricity coursing through his body. Boy did he wish he was Nora as he felt himself lose control of his arms and legs.

As Jaune felt the energy stop running through his body he slumped down and took a deep breath. Jaune lifted his head up to look at Ruby, who had managed to pull her hand out of the metal clasp on the chair apparent by the bloody knuckles she had. The scroll was pointed at him and Adam so Jaune decided to try and keep Adam's attention on him so the scroll's presence wasn't known until Jaune had found a way out. Jaune decided to ask Adam another question despite the pain still residing in his stomach.

"So what's the trap you're gonna set anyways? Since I assume you guys aren't gonna just blow their bullhead out of the sky." Adam gave him a look of suspicion before deciding to answer Jaune.

"If you have to know, we're going to let them land and get inside before blowing up this whole building with all of you in it. After saving Blake of course." He whispered onto the end.

Jaune cleared his throat to try and keep the faunus' attention on himself but it was to no avail as the man seemingly heard the click of buttons as there was no outside noise to distract from Ruby using the scroll. The man was red in the face as he saw the scroll pointed at him and was visibly shaking in rage as he charged towards Ruby.

He led with a right hook that caught Ruby off guard and caused her to drop the scroll. While she recovered Adam crouched and picked up the scroll which was still in video call. He smiled into the camera then said.

"Hello Ozpin" with venom in his voice as he set up the camera so that it pointed towards the scythe-wielder who could only watch as he slowly walked towards her with a clenched fist.

The jig was up and Adam was completely pissed off, his anger coursing through him as he stood over Ruby who could just tremble in fear at the large man's anger. Adam rolled up his sleeves carefully which created the illusion of calm in the man. Then the man spoke forcefully.

"You've put a serious roadblock in my plans miss Rose. Now, I have no choice but to put on a show for our viewers right?" Adam put an enormous amount of stress on the last word as he threw his first punch right into Ruby's gut.

Jaune was seething with anger that he didn't know he contained. Inside he knew that this is what he signed up for when he abandoned his family to become a hunter and protect the world from Grimm. But watching one of his closest friends getting beaten to a pulp was not what he wanted to watch. Ruby's face was bloody and she had a giant black eye under her right eye. Jaune tried as hard as he could to try and break the metal that kept him strung up on the wall, but he didn't have the strength to. After seeing Ruby's tears in her eyes as she could do nothing but stare at the man laying into her with fists of fury. He was taken by surprise when he felt the darkness flow through him and give him the strength to break the metal like it was child's play. Jaune pulled the scalpel like object out of his stomach, feeling the blood ooze out of the spot where he yanked it out. Adam was too caught up in the beating to notice Jaune swiftly drive the blade right into Adam's back, the faunus turned around shocked as he looked at Jaune who was shaded black with a black flame engulfing his head and the locks still around his hands and feet.

Jaune didn't give the man any time to react as he picked him up and threw him into the wall he was previously chained to. Jaune ran over and gave him a quick kick to the head to make sure he was knocked out. The knight walked over to Ruby and ripped the metal holding Ruby into the chair off Jaune felt the flame alit atop his head go out and he felt the power leave him as he picked up a bleeding, crying, Ruby. Jaune grabbed the scroll with Ozpin and his teammates standing there disgusted, Jaune unmuted the call and before they could say anything he said.

"Don't send anybody in this building, I'm going to get Ruby and I out of here, they won't blow the building up with Adam in it, so as long as we get out of here before they find out we've escaped, we'll be able to reach any transport you've sent. We'll talk about what happened when I get back, and Yang I promise I'll bring Ruby back safe." With that Jaune hung up and grabbed the magnum lying on the ground and slowly opened up the metal door that had been keeping them in this hell.

The guards weren't looking at the door as they were expecting Adam to come out, so Jaune punched the first one to his left, and before the one to his right could react he kicked him square in the face, knocking both out. Jaune grabbed one of their assault rifles and quickly made his way through the facility praying that he was going the right way.

After a couple minutes of doing a mix of running and limping with Ruby slung over his shoulder Jaune ran into two guys caught off guard at his sudden arrival. Jaune managed to kneecap the first guy, but missed his shot on the other one who managed to fire a couple shots off at him, hitting him on the shoulder Ruby was on. He dropped Ruby and was forced to kill the guy before he hit him or Ruby again.

Jaune felt sick to his stomach, but picked Ruby up again and kept going despite the new hole in his shoulder. What was odd to Jaune though was how Ruby's black eye had healed, he could have sworn it was there a minute ago. Before he could dwell on it any longer though Jaune turned a corner and spotted six men running towards him all carrying assault knight turned back around and brought Ruby into a bridal carry as he broke into a dead sprint away to try and lose the men. The hallway he was going down had a left coming up, but as he reached the turn he felt the sting of another bullet slamming into his calf causing him to tumble around the corner.

Hopelessness filled the blonde's heart as he picked Ruby up yet again in a bridal carry. He dug deep ignoring the pain he felt everywhere, he heard the footsteps of the men catching up to him and picked up the pace. As the men rounded the corner Jaune felt himself going faster than he had ever been before, the hallways blurred together Jaune felt like he was flying through the air, but his feet were still pumping as he ended his breakneck speed in a completely different section of the building. He returned back to a normal sprint towards what he hoped was the exit.

He reached the exit that was guarded sparsely with only three guards on duty two on the left of the door and the last one on the right , they didn't see him as he began his approach since they were engaging in small talk. Not interested in shedding any more unnecessary deaths Jaune threw his assault rifle at the two, the. He pulled out his magnum and fired at the solo guard. To his displeasure he felt the click of the trigger signaling that there were no more bullets loaded into it. The guard clumsily readied his weapon and started to fire into Jaune and his unconscious passenger. In this time Jaune had started up his 'enhanced run' only getting shot once in the thigh before he burst out the door and into the forest. He ran for another ten seconds before coming to halt with ragged breath. Wait, a forest? Where exactly were they? That wasn't Jaune's main priority though so he pulled out his scroll and hit the distress button hoping to alert their transport of their position outside the building.

To Jaune's relief the Bullhead was on them in an instant, soldiers beckoning for him to come to the now lowered platform. Jaune's severe limp urged the soldiers to instead meet him in the middle taking Ruby from him and helping him onboard the Bullhead as it made a speedy take off and flew back towards Beacon.

Jaune felt the stress of today's events come crashing down on him. He found himself incredibly tired and his head felt like a hammer was pounding on it. Enjoying the safety of the Bullhead Jaune closed his eyes and let sleep take over him.

 **Hey guys, sorry for the wait but as I explained at the beginning of this chapter swim and social life have really bogged me down. I originally had this chapter longer and more brutal, but I wanted to demonstrate Adam's impatience and savage quest to get Blake back which is why I wrote him OOC (you could argue my Jaune is, but give me some time). So I cut out two gore torture scenes (one involving a drill) and ended it where I did. As an apology for putting these guys through the ringer I'm gonna give em a couple chapter break to bond and recover this whole story can't be missions and tortuous anyway right? And as an apology for my absence here's an omake that I actually had in the chapter at 2am for a bit.**

 **Omake:**

Jaune reassured Ruby "As long as you get a call out to Ren secretly I can warn our friends about the ambush".

Ruby pointed the scroll at Jaune unsure as to what his plan was, and why Ren specifically? Ruby out her faith in her blonde friend and gave him a thumbs up as he got the shit beat outta him. Seeing her signal he yelled.

"Sweet Mon Calamari that plan of yours to kill our friends is almost as weak as these punches you're throwing at me."

Ren, on the other side of the screen took a moment to digest the words Jaune yelled. Then after an instant of thought Ren out two and two together and figured out what Jaune was saying.

The normally taciturn man turned to Ozpin who had a very bewildered expression on his face and said.

"It's a Tra-" **Scene**

 **As always feel free to leave a Favorite/Follow or drop a review, I always read em and if they have a question I'll normally answer them Bye!**


	13. Normal

**Chapter 13: Normal**

"Jaune honey, can you come down into the kitchen?" Jaune took out his headphones and walked out of his room. At the age of sixteen the blonde boy was tall and lanky, regardless his dream of being a hunter stood strong with no signs of stopping. That is until now as Jaune walked his way downstairs only to see his mom and dad sitting down with Crocea Mors in his dad's hand. Jaune turned around to leave, but he was stopped by the booming voice of Michael Arc.

"Come back here Jaune! Your mom and I would like to have a talk with you." Cursing Jaune turned back around and approached his living room cautiously as if he was walking on thin ice. Well metaphorically he was, but that was besides the point as he sat down opposite of his parents. Annoyed he asked.

"Can we get this over with so I can go back to doing whatever you're going to tell me not to do?" His dad gestured to the sword in his hand and pointed to the blade which had a few scuff marks.

"Care to explain this Jaune?" Michael said not hiding the irritation in his voice. Jaune shrugged before replying sarcastically.

"Haven't seen that sword before in my life officer." Jaune's father sighed and made eye contact with Jaune.

"Alright son, very funny. But you know how much I hate you practicing with this old thing. You won't last a day as a hunter boy. Your mom knows it, I know it, and even you know it Jaune so please stop trying to be something you aren't meant to be." Jaune prepared to spit fire in the form of insults to his father. To fight his parents and lash out at them, but when he opened his mouth no words came out as the thought of what his father said being true sunk in. So Jaune stood up and sprinted into his room packing his stuff up so he could run away that night.

With that memory still dancing in his mind he woke up with the familiar beeping sound that was always there to remind him that he was alive. Yet again he locked eyes with the aged Professor Ozpin on his scan of the room. Slightly startled by the appearance of the man in his hospital room he went to ask what he was doing here. Ozpin just put a finger to his lips and pointed to Jaune's left. Confused Jaune looked over to see a mop of blonde hair leaned back in her chair and snoring. He really should have heard her since her snores were just as loud as the constant beeping that irked him to no end. Taking the hint from the stoic man Jaune whispered

"Why are you always the first person I see?" Ozpin smirked at that.

"I have my ways Jaune let's just leave it at that. I just wanted to remind you that you're leading yourself down a very dark path Jaune, what you did against the White Fang was noble in saving Ruby. But it is how you handle yourself in the wake of these events that defines yourself. You can choose to think negatively and that you could've done better like your father would've, or… You can choose to ignore the positives and negatives what happened and instead cherish those around you" Ozpin gestures to the snoring Yang next to him. "and live your life to the fullest while you can, because I promise you that things won't be normal soon enough." Jaune sat there for a minute soaking in everything Ozpin told him in silence. Then after a minute of reflection Jaune understood and spoke.

"Don't ever compare me to my father again Ozpin, I'm nothing like him and I never will be!" Jaune expected some anger out of the professor, but instead he received a smile and a whisper.

"That's good to hear Mr. Arc, but don't let that anger control you too much, and for God's sake stay safe." With that Ozpin left silently gone as quick as he came. Jaune realized that he had raised his voice, and as a result sleeping beauty next to him woke up with a start. She had some hair covering her eyes and drool caught on the corner of her mouth. Once she was fully awake she wiped the drool away with a blush and moved her mop of hair out of her eyes. She was confused for a moment before figuring out where she was, then she asked Jaune.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Just a couple minutes, had a quick chat with the omnipresent Ozpin, how's Ruby?" Yang was a little surprised at his response then answered.

"Ruby's doing great thanks to you Jaune, her aura training really helped her out because she actually could stop bullets coming at her from going through her. Something you need to learn how to do, I know that your aura was low since Ruby explained what happened in that room before she called." Yang paused and gave Jaune a light hug since she knew his shoulder was probably still tender. Yang let go of Jaune and locked eyes with him now donning a serious look. "I mean this in the nicest way possible Jaune, you've gotta get more training than just sword on sword, you use your aura inefficiently and waste a lot of it. If you want of course, I don't want to force you to do this, but if you want I'm offering to train you in aura and hand to hand combat."

Yang knew she was being too forward and that she might scare Jaune away, but her and the others cared for Jaune so much, that she would be heartbroken if something happened to him. Even though he had gotten better since the beginning of their career at beacon, if he wanted to improve he needed more training.

With thoughts of his conversation with Ozpin from earlier Jaune responded.

"Yeah Yang, that'd be awesome I know I need it. When do you want to start?" Yang smiled glad that the normally socially awkward boy was up for it. Happily Yang said.

"Once you feel up to it, which should be soon since this time you were only unconscious for a day. Plus the nurse told me your shoulder and calf wounds are basically good to go, besides some tightness you'll feel." Standing up, Yang offered Jaune a hand. The knight took her hand and slowly stood up feeling a fire in his stomach and his calf as he let go of her hand and stood up using his whole weight. He stumbled for a moment grabbing on to Yang for support before he was fully set.

Looking down he realized that he just had the hospital gown on and asked Yang with a blush on his face.

"If you could turn around for a minute Yang. I just realized I have no clothes on" Jaune grabbed the clothes next to his bed probably left there from Pyrrha and waited for Yang to turn around. To his dismay Yang adopted a shit eating grin and said.

"Now what if I don't feel like turning around Jaune?" Jaune was now beet red, after having a talk with sisterly caring Yang he forgot about the teasing pun-loving side of the blonde brawler. Jaune decided to see how the blonde would respond if Jaune played her game.

"Alright Yang if you want to." Jaune then put on his boxers quickly, and dropped his hospital gown revealing his light abs and lean muscle covering his body. Yang drank in the image of Jaune for a moment before matching the blush of the currently shirtless blonde in front of her. With a nervous laugh she hastily turned around and yelled.

"Gotta admit Jaune, didn't expect such a bold move from you. Just tell me when you're done so we can eat lunch somewhere you dork." Jaune smiled as he put his black hoodie over shirt which was not easy with his arm in a sling but once he finished he called out.

"You can turn around Yang, and if it doesn't bother you, could you help me walk for a bit?"

After a moment's hesitation she faced the boy in front of her and nodded with a smile. She then stood on the side she assumed was where he got shot in the leg and gestured for them to begin walking. It was rough at first since Jaune was still testing out the amount of pressure he could put on the leg.

With only a few hiccups along the way they managed to make it out of the hospital wing and Yang popped the question.

"So… Wanna go out to Vale for some dinner?" Jaune nearly choked on air as images of Adam flashed across his mind.

"Um, I think I might need a little bit of a break from g-going out to Vale y-y'know Yang?" Yang mentally chided herself, of course he wouldn't want to go into Vale. He just got torn to pieces yesterday and had the limp to show. Yang apologized.

"I'm so sorry Jaune that was super rude of me. So the cafeteria?" Jaune just smiled at the girl showing that all was well before responding.

"Don't worry Yang, it was just an honest mistake." That surprised Yang since she honestly thought Jaune would be worse emotionally after everything. But it looks now that his demeanor has flipped, but she could totally get used to this Jaune. It was odd to her, he wasn't more confident, he was less not confident.

Pushing his new attitude to the back of her mind Yang pushed on with Jaune in tow towards the cafeteria. Looking around Yang took notice to everyone giving them two looks as they walked together, the looks bounced right off Yang who had lived most of her post-pubescent years receiving those looks. Jaune however did not possess the assets Yang did and thus was not used to the extra attention given to him apparent from the blush he was toting.

While in Jaune's mind he was blushing like crazy because he had realized that he was currently in front of the student body arm in arm with one of the prettiest girls in his grade. At this point Jaune was glad said girl was also one of the most dangerous girls in the school too. And nobody was dumb enough to catcall Yang. Nobody. With a shiver Jaune ran into the door to the cafeteria he hadn't seen coming with his face, and out stepped a few apologetic students. With a chuckle Jaune said.

"Well… I guess they didn't 'adore' me." It took Yang a moment to register the pun Jaune delivered. Yang's pause led him to believe his pun was lost to deaf ears and walked into the cafeteria slightly ashamed at the failed joke. Until suddenly as he made his way towards their teams' lunch table he was grabbed from behind in a bear hug by the blonde brawler.

"One hell of a pun there Arc!" Yang laughed. "Finally! Someone who has the same taste for jokes like I do" at this point Jaune's blush was out of control as he quietly said his thanks trying not to draw any more attention to himself and awkwardly hugged Yang's arms back. After a moment of hugging Yang released him which felt great because his shoulder was killing him, so he made his way to the lunch line and came back to his table.

There was a moment's pause then in a flash he was yet again wrapped in a hug albeit by a smaller woman this time. Ruby had him in a softer hug as she thanked him and apologized simultaneously.

"I'm so sorry for that Jaune, I always go to that gun store when I'm at beacon and that gun store has been so safe for me normally. And thanks so much for getting me out of there!" Jaune just let out a chuckle and rubbed the top of Ruby's head gingerly, glad she was okay.

"Don't blame yourself for this Ruby, all the blame on this one goes to Blake's dick of an ex-boyfriend Adam." Jaune gestured to the Faunus who picked her head up and scowled closing the book she was reading.

"Adam's obsessed with me, I was forced to escape his clutches after we had a few fights and disagreements, in which things got ugly. I have broken all ties with him that I can Jaune, but he thinks he owns me and I can do nothing past this point to stop him." Blake sighed and went back to reading having gotten her point across.

Now Jaune felt ashamed, everyone knew she had once been a part of the White Fang after she had decided to come clean to everyone. He imagined that Adam was the catalyst in her taking the leap in leaving the White Fang. Jaune gave a quick apology before leaving Ruby's grasp and taking a seat at their lunch table.

Jaune ate quickly as he was starving and even finished the seconds he had to go up and get. Since he was done so quickly he just sat back and watched his friends chat amongst themselves. He looked around, smiling as he saw Nora telling anyone that would listen about the dream she had the night before, it consisted of arms being lost and robots turning against them, thankfully that didn't actually happen.

Jaune looked towards his partner who was quietly giggling at team RWBY's antics which consisted of Ruby trying to land grapes into Yang's mouth who was sitting next to him, Weiss scolding the both of them for being 'so unladylike', and Blake pretending she was reading but really she was smiling behind her book evident because the book she was 'reading' was upside down. Feeling calm for what felt like the first time in forever Jaune gave a content sigh letting himself zone out feeling his thoughts drift towards home.

Before his thoughts could get anywhere he was interrupted by a decent sized object making contact with his forehead. Jaune sat up annoyed a little bit as he gave a friendly glare towards Ruby, she put her hands up defensively pointing at the object now rolling across the table. Which was an apple not the grapes she was launching at Yang. Jaune look around the table not seeing anyone who looked as if they did it. That is until he spotted Cardin and his lackey's snickering a couple tables down from them. Nora, having seen the same thing Jaune did stood up and yelled.

"Food fight!" With a glimmer in her eyes she grabbed the apple that had hit Jaune's forehead and began to launch it. Not wanting another gigantic food fight sternly yelled back.

"No Nora! We'll show them in the arena not out here." Nora poured for a moment before sitting back down and eating the apple she was going to use for ammo. Happy to have diffused the situation he gave a sigh of relief and sat back down feeling the looks of everyone in the cafeteria on him. But after a brief moment of respite he felt himself being dragged by his hood across the lunchroom and out the door.

The knight angled himself so he could see who was abducting him. Not much to his surprise all he saw was a blonde mane dragging him.

"Alright Yang where are we headed?" Jaune asked. Yang didn't pause for a second before replying.

"Well things were getting awkward in there so I decided we should talk since we can't train yet." Jaune just shrugged and attempted to free himself from the blondes iron grip on his hood. After a couple fruitless attempts Jaune just relaxed and let himself be taken wherever Yang wanted to have their talk.

They soon arrived at the roof where he and Pyrrha trained, Jaune wondered how Yang knew about this place, he would ask but this conversation was clearly going to be Yang asking and him answering. Not that he minded too much since he enjoyed talking to Yang, sure he might've run away and got drunk last time he talked to her one on one, but it still felt great to get everything he bottled up out of his system.

So there they sat, legs dangling over the edge side by side with their shoulders barely apart. They sat there for a few moments just looking at the sunset both basking in the sight before them. It was then that Yang asked with a smile.

"I would've had this talk with you inside the infirmary but I wanted you to get some food in you first before we talked about everything that happened." Jaune nodded returning her infectious smile.

"Thanks for that Yang, I'm a growing boy who needs his food. What did you want to ask about yesterday?" Jaune said with a chuckle patting his stomach to emphasize his point. Yang laughed at Jaune's antics letting her legs dangle over the edge of the roof. Yang sat there letting a comfortable silence come over them as she felt herself fully relax after a full day of worrying over Jaune and Ruby. She still couldn't believe what had happened, at first Hang hadn't been worried. Assuming Ruby was just geeking out with all the weapons there and keeping Jaune figuratively hostage inside the weapons store. That is until Ruby didn't give her a text to reassure her that they had just missed the last Bullhead. And then after a full afternoon of worrying Ozpin received a call as they were talking to the professor about where their scrolls said they were and that they should send a rescue party. It was then that Yang saw Jaune get electrified by that magnum which she now knew belonged to him. Seeing that made her blood boil instantly as Jaune writhed there helpless, but if she thought she was upset at seeing Jaune seeing Ruby getting beaten on set her off, and it took a combined effort of both teams to keep her from commandeering a Bullhead for herself and flying there. Even then it was Jaune's reassuring words that told her he would get Ruby out, since an Arc never breaks his word.

"How did you manage to get out of there as hurt as you were when they carted you in?" Yang said breaking the silence. Jaune hesitated for a moment taking his time to think of his answer then said.

"Well I felt such a huge surge of strength after Ruby got hurt that I broke both my bonds and Ruby's." Then Jaune paused, thinking deeply about his next words then continued. "Then like a light switch that power was gone. Thankfully the guards outside our room were clueless and I knocked them out quickly stealing an assault rifle from one of them." Jaune stopped now as it looked like he had seen a ghost before adding out of the blue. "Yang? Is it bad that I had to hurt a lot of people to get your sister out of there?" Yang recoiled taken aback by his surprise question before nodding and quickly answering.

"Jaune, it was either you or them I know that you tried to avoid more conflict than you needed." Jaune looked at his dangling shoelaces and shook his head.

"Yang I killed a man, shot him twice in the head I remember clear as day. I missed my first shots on him and let him hit me in the shoulder, and I was forced to quickly double tap him. And as horrible this is, I felt my strength grow and I used that energy to go at a crazy fast pace in order to make that home stretch and leave the facility. He had a family Yang, he must've and I just ended him there as he stood." Jaune scratched the back of his neck, a nervous tick he couldn't shake.

Yang thought hard making sure her next words would comfort Jaune. While she personally had never taken a life, so she couldn't understand what Jaune was going through fully, she had lost family before so she imagined it felt worse being the one to personally take the life. But Jaune was strong, maybe not physically, but mentally he had to have been. Repressing all those bad memories and having the constant thought of being failure toughened one quick she'd imagine. So with a serious tone she said.

"Well Jaune, while it's obviously terrible you had to take a life, but I know that must've been your last option right?" Jaune nodded letting Yang continue. "Then, while I know this may sound cheesy, but it was either you or them, and while I know you must still feel terrible. If you didn't feel terrible that would show me that you have a problem. But the tears in your eyes tell me everything." Yang bumped Jaune with her shoulder and he turned to her with tears glimmering in the light from the setting sun.

Jaune just laid his legs out in return and rested his head in Yang's lap finally letting the tears spill out. After a moment of surprise Yang ran her fingers through Jaune's hair letting him get it all out.

"I-I was s-so scared we weren't going to get out Yang, and we wouldn't have if it wasn't for my 'second semblance' I guess." Jaune said lightly in between sniffles as he cried lightly before continuing. "Because I knew there was no way that you wouldn't be the first person to charge through those doors when you got our location. But that was Adam's plan, he wanted just that so he could kill all of us except Blake." Jaune took a deep breath before silently crying again.

"And thanks for that Jaune without you we probably would have died, and I know that it's not easy to talk about these things, but it's better for you to let these things out instead of bottling like you normally do right?" Jaune nodded before saying.

"Thanks Yang. Thanks for everything, from saving me to offering to train me, and to just watching out for me." Yang smiled in response and let them sit there for a few minutes.

Once the sun had finalized setting Yang was going to ask Jaune if he wanted to go inside, but the knight was already asleep. Carefully she lugged Jaune over her shoulder chuckling at the drool running down his face already.

"I hope your ready for your training tomorrow Arc, you really need to learn how to defend yourself when you try and sacrifice yourself." Yang quietly said to the asleep boy laying limp over her shoulder.

Ozpin sat there, light from his scroll reflecting off of his glasses as he took another drink from his mug he stared at the blonde duo as they made their way back to their dorms. Memories flashed through the professor's mind of his countless number of mistakes. Seeing that the boy was doing fine and well Ozpin clicked off his scroll, relishing the darkness he said quietly.

"No respite for the weary Jaune, no respite for the weary." With that he carefully moved the white night from its starting position diagonally up one space.

 **Hey, I'm alive crazy right? Sorry I (insert obligatory school being crazy excuse). Well I'm very proud of this chapter's structure (and it goes without saying the 4k words which is a record for me) what with all them not parallel parallels. Boasting aside I hope you like this style of chapter with there being heavy plot and stuff cause that'll be a nice theme in the next couple chapters with a little action of course. But seriously thanks for still reading this, and I'm sorry to say that the next chapter's release date is probably at least a month away, so sit tight and leave a review, I love reading them even if you don't have an account just drop one and it'll put a smile on my face. Thanks for reading bye!**


	14. Again

**Chapter 14: Again**

Normally Jaune dreaded combat class. He was the worst at fighting other people, not that he was great at fighting Grimm he was just worse at fighting people. Plus it was his last class of the day which meant Glynda was even more irritated than usual. He was usually hungry by this point in the day anyway which didn't help. Today was different however as he was well rested for the first time in forever as he had taken the last three days of training to make sure he made a complete recovery as per Pyrrha's request.

So now, feeling rejuvenated Jaune walked into class and sat next to his team and team RWBY waiting for Glynda to announce what they were doing today. Jaune felt himself shaking a tiny bit from excitement as he was really eager to battle today really wanting to let out some pent up anger from his missions and Cardin. He received some weird looks from Pyrrha who could feel energy radiating from the Arc as it was more normal for Nora to be this way not the blonde knight.

Regardless of the looks he got Jaune continued to sit there practically bursting with energy, the only thing that calmed him down was Glynda's arrival to the class right as the bell rang. Getting right down to business she called out.

"Alright class, today we will be sparring. All the fights today have been handpicked by me so that all the spars today are of equal level. And no one will be able to opt out of a spar today Understand?" Shooting a look at Jaune who just shrugged, he had been not fighting before their missions since he felt he wasn't strong enough after his first few fights with Cardin. They ended with him getting destroyed, instead he prefered to watch others fight and take note of their fighting style. But right now he wouldn't of skipped a spar for his life, already anxious to fight Cardin since the last time he had battled he had made to semi-close. Which consisted of him landing Cardin's aura into the yellow, it was still a humiliating defeat as he had lost his weapons and beaten mercilessly by Cardin's mace since he had no defense. Which raised another question about how his aura worked once he got into the arena. Well he could worry about that once he had been called down to the arena.

While he had gotten lost in his thoughts the first fight had been announced, it was Ruby against Weiss, which was to be expected as not many people were up to Ruby's caliber of skill the only ones he could think of was her team and his, excluding him of course. He focused onto the arena now as he saw the match had already started, it started off with some long range attacks, until Ruby got fed up with Weiss dodging her attacks and rushed in with the help of her semblance to get behind Weiss and slash at her midsection hoping to end this early. Unfortunately for her Weiss was expecting that and had dashed away with the help of her glyphs and was flying back in Rapier ready to pierce. hat is until Weiss missed the obviously open Ruby who was still finishing her failed slash Ruby laughed for a moment until she tried to run away and found her feet encased in ice, then Myrtenaster was at Ruby's throat and the match was won.

Ruby looked dejected and Weiss just helped her get out of the ice and walked her back up to their seats. Glynda then yelled out.

"Alright class what mistakes did both of them make." Instantly Pyrrha's hand shot up and Glynda pointed to her.

"Well Ruby got greedy and did a very predictable move which was using her semblance to get behind Miss Schnee and from that she lost. While Weiss was showing mercy she still should have frozen more than her feet as stronger competitors could have broken out of that quickly." Pyrrha said confidently.

"Well put Miss Nikos, now we have Jaune Arc and Cardin Winchester up." Jaune jumped up and was inside the arena in an instant, wanting to ask Goodwitch a question first.

"Um, excuse me professor Goodwitch if you don't mind me asking, why do we not get scratches on our bodies or clothing in the arena until we run out of aura. Yet when we are out in the field most hits break skin and rip clothes?" Glynda didn't even hesitate before answering.

"Well if you had payed attention in class last year you would know that it's because the arena gives all fighters a layer of what you could equate to the armor you gained on your mission. It is invisible and covers the whole body, and while it's impenetrable it still doesn't stop attacks from hurting until you and when it's hit it drains aura so when you drop into the red the armor leaves and the battle is over. That is unless you put your opponent in a situation that they would certainly lose if they weren't in the arena as you saw in Ruby's spar. Good luck mister Arc."

and with that she walked to the middle of the arena waiting for both competitors to be ready.

Jaune was ready now, he had his weapons ready and his questions were satisfied. While he was extremely serious and fully tense ready to fight, Cardin however was just smiling and nonchalantly standing on the opposite side of the arena snickering as he did so. Jaune let out a small smile any plans to feign illness gone, he was ready to get some revenge on the bully and show off his new skills he had gained from training with Pyrrha, and he still wanted payback for when Cardin punched his lights out.

Time seemed to slow for Jaune, as he signaled to Goodwitch that he was ready. He cleared his head, no one else there to help him, just one on one with his biggest rival at Beacon. No pressure right?

He looked into the stands, there were his friends up in stands cheering for him. He gave a laugh just to piss off Cardin before the match started. He must have rustle Cardin well because he delayed his ready signal to yell obnoxiously.

"What's so funny Arc!"

"Just can't wait to knock that stupid grin off of your face Cardin" Jaune responded. Cardin's answer was to charge in signaling the start of the battle.

Jaune let Cardin get a little closer to him so he was roughly twenty feet away and whipped out his pistol. The cold metal in his hand felt amazing as he fired a dust round at Cardin's feet. That's what he meant to do at least as he pulled his shot up and nailed the brute in the chest with a ice round. While he did knock the smile off of Cardin's face, speed wise Cardin only slowed down for a moment acknowledging that he was part ice sculpture now and continued his barbaric charge towards Jaune.

Jaune swore very loudly in his head, a symphony of curses that he was positive his mom would give him a bar of soap to chew on if she could hear Jaune's thoughts. Thankfully for him she couldn't do that. Still Jaune cursed his aim mentally as he dove to the side and dodged Cardin's overhead strike.

Jaune stood up and faced Cardin who had already broke the ice off of his chest and was now facing Jaune. Jaune went to put away his magnum, that is until he realized that he had nowhere to put it. At this point Jaune was completely flustered, with nothing going his way he fired his last five rounds at Cardin, with the last two grazing him making Carding pause for a moment.

Jaune took the moment of break to ready his sword and shield waiting on Cardin's first move. The knight didn't have to wait very long as Cardin charged towards him with reckless abandon. Jaune rushed back ready for the real fight to begin.

They met and Cardin led by slamming his mace into Jaune's shield, Jaune countered with a slash from his sword making the bully jump back and wince. Still as cocky as ever yelled out.

"Lucky shot bitch, let's see if you can do that again." Cardin ran right back in, but this time he knew Jaune had no intention of using his sword for defense, so Cardin just charged right through Jaune's shield and pushed him back. Jaune's hand was forced and he had to bring his sword up to block Cardin's strike. Which was exactly what Cardin wanted as he easily overpowered Jaune and landed a hefty blow on the knight. Jaune watched his aura drop as he recovered, the hit brought him down to the yellow and he knew that he had to go the offensive if he wanted to win. As fast as his hands could move Jaune fished out a dust round from his pocket he sighed in relief when he saw the red coat and knew he grabbed the right one. He backed away from Cardin, resetting the situation as he shoved the round into its chamber praying the oaf would do what he wanted.

Jaune pointed the gun at Cardin forcing the boy into a defensive stance then, surprising everyone Jaune pointed the gun into the air and shot. He watched Cardin follow the flare-like object as it flew to its peak.

It was now or never for Jaune as he started his sprint at Cardin, Jaune threw his gun as hard as he could at the boy and ripped out his sword so that the bully was hit by the gun, then tackled with a sword at his throat in an instant.

Glynda called the match and Jaune felt himself being lifted off of Cardin by Glynda's glyphs. He felt the power from her glyphs leave him, so he went and grabbed his gun, then retreated to his seat to get away from the red faced Cardin.

Reaching his seats he blushed as all his friends were cheering still as he took his seat. Ruby high fived him, While Blake and Weiss gave him a smile and nod. While his team brought him into a group hug, well more so Nora dragging everyone into a group hug.

They released and Pyrrha put a hand on Jaune's shoulder and said.

"Congratulations Jaune, we all knew you had it in you it was just a matter of you believing in yourself. You can only improve from here Jaune, and we'll all be here behind you." Jaune's blush deepened and he responded kindly.

"T-T-thanks Pyrrha, I couldn't of done it without you and your support, and don't worry I'll always be there for you and our friends." Jaune sat down and signaled for his friends to follow suit so they didn't interrupt class any more.

Glynda gave a look of thanks at Jaune, and said.

"Mr. Daichi the floor is yours." The stoic man nodded and began.

"Well Cardin failed to take advantage of superior positions he was in, and became cocky which was defeated because so. Meanwhile, Jaune's skills with a gun were clearly that of a novice, and he went throughout the fight clumsily. However he did take advantage of Cardin's weaknesses which won him the fight in the end." The large man sat down and waited for Glynda's response.

"Excellently put Mr. Daichi. We'll begin our next fight now." Jaune looked to the arena wondering why Yang didn't say anything to him, or on the same note where she was. He got lost in his own thoughts as Glynda started talking about something he didn't care about. His mind drifted to Yang.

She and him had become friends really quickly, in their first year they had just been acquaintances through Ruby. But this year during their first mission she made the move to become friends he still had no idea why. The friendship didn't end after that mission either because he thought for a brief period that's it was just because he was leader and trying to help him, but once the four of them were stuck in that forest their connection was cemented.

Jaune was brought back to his senses when Sky Lark slammed into the wall below him. Looking up he saw Yang taking off her gauntlets with a grin plastered on her face.

Yang made her way up the stairs with a pep in her step. Jaune stood up and gave Yang a thumbs up and smiled at her. Yang returned the smile shaking her head and laughed.

"Thanks Jaune, although it's not as great an accomplishment as you since fighting Sky was child's play. That jerk volunteered to fight me probably in the hopes to cop a feel, so I gave him a one punch fight. But I really should be congratulating you Jaune." Jaune paused Yang.

"Thanks Yang, but Pyrrha already gave me the whole 'you can only get better from here' spiel, but really I appreciate your thanks." Yang nodded looking hurt just a little bit, but he just didn't want to hear the same speech twice. Yang gave Jaune a little punch on the shoulder and started to head toward her team, and called out over her shoulder.

"Don't forget we're training tonight at eight Arc, you might want to get some rest before I pound you into the ground." Jaune blushed and sat back down head in his hands. While he heard Yang laughing and her teammates groaning.

Jaune stood outside the door to the rooftop with his sword and shield in his hand mentally preparing to go in. Jaune had taken a quick nap to get some energy and then made his way over. Jaune psyched himself up and entered the rooftop looking around for Yang.

After a moment of looking he sheathed his sword and pulled out his scroll to see where she was. He suddenly felt a force behind him and dove to the side ready to fight the unnamed entity in front of him. Jaune relaxed when he saw the Yang laughing her ass off with tears in her eyes.

"Oh my god! I got you so good Jaune, you were about to fight me." Jaune crossed his arms in mock anger.

"What was that for Yang, you scared me half to death!" Yang wiped the tears from her eyes and answered him still chuckling.

"I wanted to test your aura's strength in detecting hostile presences, and because I knew it would be really funny." Jaune lowered his arms and gave a laugh and walked over to Yang and teased.

"What're we gonna work on today, bully?" Yang waved off Jaune and walked even closer to him so close that he could feel her breath on him. Jaune locked up and waited for her to answer him, the brawler opened her mouth to talk, but instead Jaune felt a hard blow hit his stomach and fell back onto the ground. Jaune groaned and laid on the ground giving himself a moment to relax.

Jaune heard Yang walk over to him and he raised his arms to defend himself just in case Yang had any more surprises in store for him. Instead Yang grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. Yang then grabbed Jaune's hoodie and lifted it up looking, at his bare stomach that was already showing signs of bruising.

Jaune blushed a little and gave Yang a look of confusion after she let go of his hoodie.

"Punch me back Jaune." Yang said casually. Jaune shook his head. Yang got serious "No seriously punch me Jaune as hard as you can in my stomach." Jaune gave her a look of hesitance before pulling back his fist and hitting her right in her stomach. Yang wheezed for a second but didn't even get knocked back a little from Jaune's punch.

Yang pulled her orange shirt up she wore before initiation that she usually wears for work outs. Jaune looked and saw that she had no bruising and laughed.

"That's how weak my punch is I guess." Yang shook her head and chided him.

"No Jaune, I didn't even focus my aura there, my aura is just always prepared and flowing throughout my body. While yours is hiding away waiting to be called upon. My ability to not have to worry about focusing aura for defense (except for extreme cases) allows me to focus more on my offense. We need to fix that part of you before we even get to hand to hand combat, okay Jaune?" Jaune shrugged, he saw what she was talking about and knew she was right but joked anyway.

"So I guess I won't get pounded anytime soon?" Yang snorted in response and hit Jaune's shoulder jokingly.

They worked for over an hour together with Yang giving Jaune a lot of mental exercises to try and him getting frustrated since nothing was working for him. At this point Jaune's frustration was too high and he knew any more attempts would be futile so he started.

"Sorry for sucking today Yang, but I'm too frustrated right now I think we should call it a night." Yang nodded and smiled.

"Jaune don't apologize to me, it took me a long time to get my aura to be able to do this, but I have a feeling you'll get this down fairly quick." Jaune squinted at Yang for a moment before accepting her answer and grinned. In response Yang continued. "But we do have to get you in the gym lifting Jaune since I know Pyrrha only has you doing cardio which was good for last year, but now we gotta get some more power behind your strikes and finish matches quicker instead of relying on a race of endurance, Y'know?" Jaune was all for it nodding his head wildly which Yang responded with a questioning look.

"I feel a little silly saying this out loud, but ever since I was a little boy I always dreamed of having the biggest muscles. I wanted to be able to help others who couldn't help themselves, and the only way I believed I could do that as a kid was to have the biggest muscles. But that never happened I was just the weak scrawny kid." Yang gave Jaune a sympathetic look, and while she had never been in the boy's situation herself she certainly understood where he was coming from. Jaune then started walking away seeing that it was late and time to go back to the dorm. Before he could leave though he felt an arm hook under his. The knight looked down and saw that apparently he was now escorting Yang to their dorm rooms.

"Thought you could escape me so easily lover boy?" Yang said jovially. Taken by surprise at the question Jaune stuttered out.

"N-No I-I was just leaving since I-I thought we were done with training." Yang adopted serious look.

"Jaune. Don't worry I'm just teasing, don't take everything I say seriously. Well you didn't last year, what happened?" Jaune just shook his head in response.

"I'll tell you later when we have more time Yang don't worry." Not fully satisfied with her answer Yang went to contest Jaune but saw that they were at their dorms.

"I'll remember your answer there Arc. Good night." she opened her door but paused. She called out to Jaune and lifted up his hoodie and saw that he hadn't healed his bruise.

"You gotta take care of yourself and heal that Jaune, what would you do without me?" Yang said concerned.

"I know Yang I'll get better at that stuff don't worry. But honestly thanks a million. Night Yang." Jaune said and went into his dorm ready for whatever came his way.

 **Sorry for the delay can't say the next chapter will take more or less time. What I do know however is that I'm going to fix my dialogue so the verb is after the dialogue, you can read hints of it in this chapter as I was integrating it into my writing but now it will be in almost all my dialogue. I'm sorry or how spread out this chapter feels I wrote this sporadically since I posted my last chapter. Thanks for reading it means a lot.**

 **P.S I read every review and they all mean a lot whether it's critical or not don't be afraid to leave on Bye!**


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